Star Galaxy: The Greatest Challange
by Maigery
Summary: I made this up when i was a kid when STNG was popular. This time around, its the kids that are in charge! All Orginal Characters except one: A Romulan named Tomahawk. Thanks Gene Roddenberry! Please review what you thought of it so far?
1. Chapter 1

This story is dedicated to my friends and to my one biggest influence: Gene Roddenberry who created Star Trek and its universe

This story is dedicated to my friends and to my one biggest influence: Gene Roddenberry who created Star Trek and its universe. Without it, I couldn't possibly have the courage to write this story and to dream many dreams! Please enjoy!

Tammy Densley

Star Galaxy: The Greatest Challenge By: Tammy Densley

Prologue:

"Aren't you going to come back home soon Tammy?" asked a voice.

Tammy looked up from her work and smirked at her brother, "I will, tonight for sure. I know it's been a month since we got back. I just hate leaving this place to go back to the normal routine again."

"Tammy, nothing will be normal. Hey, at least, we fulfilled our promise to certain people and now we can pick up from where we left off. What are you doing?" Ryan teased.

"Just finishing up some routine reports for the Captain and finishing up my entry about our mission. It was a long one, and you know me, I pay attention to details. You go ahead, just tell mom and dad I'll be home in time for supper. After all, tomorrow is Monday and we have a full day ahead of us considering its back to school once again. The year is not shot yet, not by far!" grinned Tammy.

"Okay, I'll see you back at home. Just don't stay too long, I'll come looking for you and I know where you are!" laughed Ryan as he left Tammy to her stuff.

Tammy sighed. And she reluctantly went back to her work once again. It's been over a month and a half since the mission. Lots have happened. She smiled and leaned back in her chair as she remembered the first day it all started for everyone.

**Chapter One**

It was a bright spring morning, and it was the beginning of a new day. School was filled with students eagerly waiting for some downtime. One particular class was in their gym playing a game of floor hockey. The class was hard at it, and not noticed when three of their classmates disappeared from the room swiftly.

Tammy groaned and woke up, her head aching in response. She opened her eyes and gingerly looked around. It was almost pitch black.

"Where's the light?" asked Tammy out loud and unbeknown to her, the lights went on and illuminated the room. Sucking in a breath, she noticed two other people on the ground next to her.

"Jaret? David? Are you guys okay? What happened?" asked Tammy as she went to them to shake them awake.

The two boys came around and they too groaned as they opened their eyes and took in their new surroundings and nodded to Tammy before David asked, "Where are we?"

"I'm not exactly sure but we seemed to be in some secret hiding place…one that no one is aware of.", observed Tammy got up from the ground as she walked towards a desk scattered with papers.

"What are we going to do?" asked Jaret seriously.

"We are going to keep this quiet…besides…no one would believe us even if we told them. Plus we don't know how we got in the first place?" advised Tammy.

"Tammy! I want you to take a look at this." David shouted.

Tammy shook her head as the voiced echoed in her ears, and she sighed as she went to David's location. She saw strange things; none of them were familiar to her. Things looked way out of place as it feels that they have stumbled onto a scene from a science fiction show.

"What's up David?" asked Tammy.

"What is this Tammy?" asked David as he was pointing to a button that was blinking on the console that had words written on it…but it was covered with a thick layer of dust before David bent down to swipe the dust off..

Tammy peered over David's shoulder and shook her head in disbelief, "It says that three people have been transported here by an activation of an emergency command."

"Okay, what does that mean?" asked David.

"The last thing I remembered was yelling at you to take me there." Jaret muttered as he sat down on a dusty chair. His hands were holding his head.

The console beeped in response, "Do you wish to beam another?"

David yelped in surprise as Tammy's jaw dropped and saw that Jaret got up and said," What do they mean by beam?"

"Molecular transportation beam. It transports said person from one location to another location by word of command."

Tammy whirled around and looked at David, "David! You yelled out Yes to Jaret right? Jaret, the computer must have mistaken your command as an actual voice command."

"Okay, where are we?" asked David hesitantly.

"You are in Main Engineering on board the USS Galaxy."

"What does the "USS" stands for?" asked Tammy.

"USS stands for United Star System."

"That answers one question. What is the USS Galaxy?" mumbled Jaret.

"The USS Galaxy is a space faring vessel. It has 42 decks, equipped with..."

"Stop. Okay…we will ask more questions later." Announced Tammy.

" How long has this place been here? They didn't dig deep down that's for sure and they built the school over on top of it. How big is it?" asked Jaret.

"The Galaxy is 700 meters long, 500 meters wide and 138 meters high."

"Okay, enough asking questions. We don't know how long it has been here so let us find out later." Laughed David.

"It doesn't even say anything yet. I will find out at a later time. After all, it's just all computer information. I'll figure out how to access it later." Replied Tammy.

"Sure we can…we have to…I want to find out more about this place before we do anything else more." Answered Jaret as he looked to David, which David nodded in agreement.

Jaret looked about his surroundings and suggested," We could try to clean up this place…it really needs it. We have no choice…we can't do much if we have dust flying about."

"I agree…we do need some cleaning supplies though…" sighed David.

"I do have one question to make…how are we going to do this…if we can't get a hold of any cleaning supplies if we don't know how to get out of here in the first place. That should be our first priority. Plus if we do get out…what is to stop us but Mr. Cryer…from asking us about where did we take off to in the middle of gym class?", pointed out Tammy.

The boys looked at each other and suddenly realized that Tammy did make a point. They shrugged their shoulders as a sign that they were at loss as to what to do next. David looked around and noticed something.

"Hey, do you know what? Now we know why the place is a mess…they left in a hurry…but the question remains…why they leaved in such of a hurry?" explained David.

Jaret nodded in agreement and then she said as he turned to Tammy," Would any of these computers have any log or records?" asked Jaret.

Tammy eyes flew to the console and started looking and then she shook her head yes…with her eyes gleaming. Then suddenly they all heard a noise outside and they froze in fear but they all relaxed when they realized it was only a couple of wreckage that fell down to the floor. Tammy headed to the computer where she'll find the answer to Jaret's question, meanwhile the boys headed off to explore, forgetting their original plans. With the help of the computer, she followed instructions until she accessed the logs files. She scrolled down to the last entry made and what she found shocked her.

"Jaret, David! Come see this!" shouted Tammy. The boys came running and she motioned them to the screen with the last entry on it. Here is what the boys  
saw...

Captain's Log 7908.05

Something will happen shortly to us, and we must flee the Galaxy. Sadly enough, I hate leaving my ship that we have called it home for so long. There is another 2 ships out there but they are no where around to help us. So I am putting this down as my last entry into the command logs. We are being attacked by the Romulan Empire…we can't see them and we have no way to combat against that. For some reason they are not giving us any explanations for this hostile attack we have multiple damage to the ship, life support is barely hanging on, there is heavy damage on many decks. Main Engineering has taken a hit too, as our warp drive and our warp nacelles are toast. I have decided on this day to tell the crew to abandon ship and to the life pods. There is a planet we passed by several weeks ago and that is where we are going. I won't input the coordinates for the new home I have selected due to the fact I don't want our enemy to know our new whereabouts. We are leaving. I'm issuing an order to leave ship tomorrow at seven hundred hours. I will put the ship on autopilot and force it to land on a planet that is nearby. Sensors show there is humanoid life there, but very primitive stage of technology. I will also pre- program the ship to plow deep into the ground so that it remains buried to be discovered later or for us to recover it at a time when we're not afraid of our enemies. Whichever comes first, I wish that that ever finds this last entry if we have not arrived to recover the Galaxy...this place is yours…and good luck on getting a good use out of it.

Sincerely,  
Captain Terran James.

"Well, I guess they didn't tell much of the enemies or who they were and why they were attacking in the first place anyhow?" grumbled David.

"Tammy, can you draw up the Galaxy's ship specs for me?" asked Jaret calmly.

Tammy nodded and started punching in a bunch of sequence but at that moment, the power dwindled down to nothing but a faint glow.

"Great...we lost power!" growled Tammy.

"What time is it?" asked David curiously.

Jaret looked at the watch on his wrist and whistled," It's already past three thirty, school is out. I think maybe the power supply is being connected to this place. I think the school was built over this ship and they accidentally tapped into here or vice versa. We can always come back tomorrow...but let's get home and get some sleep. We have much to mull over anyhow."

"I wish we could see the map and I also don't want to leave this place without knowing more." whined Tammy as she got up from the chair. David and Jaret looked at each other and nodded their agreement; they too felt the same way as well.

Finally Jaret spoke up," Let's get going home and we'll meet up here again early since David and I and found our way out when you called for us. We could always enter again in the same way. In the morning we can start moving the debris around, get an idea on how bad the damage is while you get main power and interior sensors up and running."

David and Tammy nodded and walked towards the direction that lets them leave the ship quietly and unseen. They left the Galaxy with many questions unanswered and with hope that the next day will bring answers.

The next morning came all too soon for them, the three returned to the ship unseen and set to work. Tammy had other plans and told Jaret just that," When I got home, I nearly got a heart attack from mom and dad, they were mad that I wasn't in school and just assumed that I skipped classes and of course I couldn't tell them otherwise. But I did have time to think on what I wanted to do today. I will get main power up and running and also find out how extensive the damage is so we can plan a way to repair what is possible. I rather know what to do next than do it blindly." explained Tammy.

The boys nodded and went their way and left Tammy at the computer. She sat down and got to work. It took hours but she finally got main power up and running. The room lit up very brightly. She smiled as she finally accomplished that main task. Then she got to working on sensors and was dismayed to find that damage was bad in the lower decks. The upper decks weren't as bad as she assumed they were. She transferred the information into 3 data padds for all three of them. That way they can remain on the same page of information. Then a voice startled her out of her seat.

"What are you doing here?" asked a gnarly voice.

Tammy whirled around and faced one of her teacher Mrs. Kvamme and she was standing in the same doorway that trapped the three of them the other day. She jumped up and shouted," Red Alert!" The computer registered her voice command and started to flash the lights red on and off. The boys came running and came to a halt when they saw what was going on.

"Get her out of here!" ordered Jaret.

"Better idea, we are getting out of here. Computer locks on to us three…beam us to Shuttle bay 3", commanded Tammy.

In a few seconds the three finds themselves not where they were last but in a poorly lit area where the air smelled stale and poor.

"What the?" stuttered David.

"Aren't you glad that I have been more prepared now?" asked Tammy with a grin.

"Thank you so much Tammy. Where are we?" replied Jaret with a question.

"We are in Shuttle bay 3 on deck 13. I've only got life support on minimal for the areas we were at. I found out that we were in Main Engineering the whole time. Its on deck 36. Speaking of which, here take these. I've managed to upload some stuff for you guys to read. I'm going to go to the shuttlecraft and get some information. I'm pretty sure the sensors on the shuttle craft are not damaged and I can find out if Mrs. Kvamme has left or not." Tammy explained as she gave each of them the data padd she had in her hands.

The two looked at the data padds and their jaws went slack…"This is going to be a ton of work!" they both shouted.

Tammy left the three and headed towards the shuttle and was at the closed locked door where she found the console on the side of it and punched in a code command that made the door swish open for them. She stepped inside and went to the front and pushed some more buttons and the interior of the craft lit up with lights. As she sat down at the chair she turned to look at Jaret and David before growling at them," Are you two finished gawking at me or do you want come on in? There are a few things I want to do before we go any further."

David and Jaret came inside the shuttle and sat down in the remaining two chairs. They just watched her for they didn't know what to do but they trusted her.

After a few minutes went by quietly, "What are you doing?" asked Jaret as he watched Tammy punching in commands and was surprised to see words come on the screen.

"I've just scanned the ship since we have external sensors here and I can find out if our uninvited guest has left already. Plus I want to check out where the main damage is..." paused Tammy as she read the information on the monitor.

"From what I can remember from yesterday and today. I saw these long skinny tubes in the side of the walls near where we were. There was also corridor and places that I have no idea of their functions. There was this door that I couldn't get open even when the power came back on. It just kept on beeping." thought David out loud.

"Yes, I know what you mean. Those long skinny tubes are called Jeffrey tubes. They allow access to power conduits and such for required repairs." Tammy around to face Jaret and David," We were in Main engineering, the heart of the Galaxy. Those other places you saw….all work with main engineering. What we really need is to get to the bridge but the turbo lifts are down. Turbo lifts are elevators. But they can up and down and from side to side, so much more efficient. That must be that door you can't open. I will try to get that back online later. We have many other decks above us for other things. I will find out all that later too."

"You've been busy absorbing this information and the layouts of the ship haven't you?" asked a pleased Jaret.

Tammy nodded, "Yep, and I'm happy to report something else. Our intruder is gone none too soon for me! By the way, there is something I wanted to do."

Tammy got up from her chair and walked towards this crèche in the wall next to David's seat. She punched in a few buttons and waited. A whirling sound could be heard and there were three different colored clothes that appeared where it was empty not too long ago. She grabbed them and sat down again, "I'm glad the replicators are working. This is something I've been thinking since last night."

Jaret and David looked at what Tammy had in her lap.

"What about them Tammy?" asked David.

"These are uniforms. I found them in the database earlier. We found this place and I feel that we should have this place as our own. After all this is what Capt. James would've wanted. These colors have a symbolic meaning. The blue, I have decided to be the Chief Medical Officer. It's something I've been thinking for the longest time. The red uniform has various meaning, but it is largely for command officers like Captain or commander. The green is the same as well, they too have various meaning but I think this would be suitable for security or a science officer. Which do you guys want to go with? I'm offering you a choice." explained Tammy.

"Okay, that makes a lot more sense then I thought. This is a better system than our military. No more badges or what not. I'll go with security; I like to try my hand on that. That is something I can be into quite well." smiled David.

"That leaves me with the command uniform. Okay, I can see your line of reasoning Tammy. I'll take the rank of Captain. What we need to do is…", Jaret suddenly he paused as his watch started to beep and he looked at it quickly," is to go home. We've been here a full day. I'll take my uniform home, and you'll do the same David."

Jaret looked at Tammy and she held out her hands interrupting Jaret's train of thought," You guys can go home for I already planned ahead anyhow. I told my parents that I was staying the night at a friend's house and they agreed so I'll be here instead. I'm going to find a room and keep working on the computer and maybe I can get life support back to a few places and fix up some of the damaged areas." explained Tammy.

"If you say so, then good luck, since tomorrow is a weekend and I just know that both our parents are going to have a fit because we didn't show up again for school but this I feel is greatly important. Goodnight Tammy and I'll see you tomorrow. We have a whole weekend to work on some stuff here and make some decisions. One thing for sure, we are going back to school on Monday for I don't want any more additional trouble coming our way.", suggested Jaret.

"Aye Captain." smiled Tammy.

"Aye Captain, and good night doc!" laughed David.

"I'll beam you guys out of here. I'll drop you off at home or near there anyhow. See you tomorrow!" beamed Tammy as she turned back to the console and punched in a few buttons and she heard the unmistakable sound of the transporter working and her two friends disappeared. She was alone once more and she shook her head. She re-checked the sensors and decided that she can head back to main engineering. Tammy sighed and keyed in more commands for the transporter and she was back in Main Engineering. She looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary but what was considered normal anymore. Medic Bay was thirty some decks above her and with the turbolifts down, there was no option for her to get there. So she decided to head to some crew quarters on deck 32 and stay there. She can access the computer and work on studying for her to be the chief doctor on board here.

She had way too many debris to step aside and all that just to get to 4 decks above her. Thank goodness for Jeffery tubes on board this ship. That made it all the more easier.

"Finally!" muttered Tammy as she reached Deck 32 a half an hour later. She was sick of crawling through those tubes. They are very annoying. She went inside the closest room she saw and sat down. Turned on the computer and got to work. She wanted to restore power to the Turbolift cause going through all of those tubes is taking too much time and she didn't want to use the transporter too much as it is taxing their power a bit too much. Restoring Main power and keeping it from being drained will require a full engineering crew. She'll talk to Jaret about that later. Once the computer chirped to tell her that the turbolifts were back in order she heaved a sigh of relief. No more crawling for her! Now it was time to get back to business.

A few hours later, Tammy was starting to get tired from all the reading she was doing and finally decided that she had enough for one day so she shut down her mini computer and left the office. Upon leaving, she looked around and saw the mess there and started on the main room. She picked up odd things that she didn't know and a few things she recognized from her readings and in a few minutes it was okay enough that no one can trip over things. She made plans in the future to start cleaning up in the morning and leave the studying at night. She saw her uniform lying over the edge of one of the chairs she had thrown it off on, and sighed to herself. Thinking that it will be a long while before she can say she is a doctor in her own right. Feeling so very tired, she stumbled into bedroom and pulled the covers off. Sleep is the next thing in order for it has been one very exhausting day and tomorrow will be even more tiring. She punched in a few commands codes in the computer and crawled into bed.

"Lights off", commanded Tammy as the computer responded by turning off the lights. The rest of the ship was on night shift mode for it made the lighting was on minimal.

Early next morning, Tammy was jolted awake by the intruder alert alarm. She sprung up and out of bed, hurriedly put her robe on and grabbed her phaser that she had conveniently left on the desk before rushing out the door. She knew where…and ran down the hall towards the turbolift and commanded it to head to Main Engineering. What she forgot was that the lighting was poor and kept tripping over wreckage on the floor and didn't command the computer to turn the light back on. As she ran inside Main Engineering to curse herself that she couldn't see the intruder very well, for all she could see was a dark shadowed figure stumbling around the dark.

She stopped in mid stride and held her phaser up, and opened her mouth," Computer turn on the lights, mute intruder alert."

The intruder gasped in surprised when the lights went on temporarily blinding them and when Tammy saw that her intruder was again Mrs. Kvamme.

"Well, welcome back and what do you want?" asked Tammy tiredly.

Mrs. Kvamme answered flippantly," Trying to find out more about this place but my questions were left unanswered yesterday when you three disappeared and what are you doing here?"

"I stayed over the night attempting to repair some of the damaged areas and I found the information that you seek but do you think I'll hand over that information willingly? You are, however considered an intruder so I suggest you leave now before you can explain your presence to Capt. Pieper.", growled Tammy.

"This place is not yours yet and it will be mine when I tell Mr. Cryer why you were not in school for the last two days. You have the weekend to decide what to do with this place or you'll regret it when Mr. Cryer finds out. Better tell your Captain that!" threatened Mrs. Kvamme.

"Computer, beam the intruder off board and back to the surface." Tammy commanded as she sighed and lowered her phaser down when the computer chirped in response. Once she was gone, she sat down on the nearest chair. Tammy shook her head and made a choice, upon it she spoke," Computer, contact Lt. Dyck and Captain Pieper. Tell them that their presence is needed urgently." commanded Tammy as she got up from the chair and left Main Engineering when the computer responded," Processing request, contacts have confirmed that they are on their way."

Tammy entered her temporary quarters and decided that since there was nothing she can do until Jaret and David got here so she might as well gather some breakfast for the guys and herself. She still felt tired considering she had only slept for six hours. After taking a shower and dressing up in her new uniform. She walked back to Main Engineering so she can take a look at what the replicators can create for breakfast while she waited for the guys to arrive. She was dreading what she will have to tell them and wondered at the same time what they'll think too.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

An hour later Tammy was found by Jaret and David when she was busy working on the computer and eating at the same time. She was so engrossed in her work that she never heard the two of them beam in.

"Tammy, the computer said you wanted to see us urgently, what's wrong?" asked a concerned but tired Jaret.

Tammy jumped as she heard his voice and turned around to face Jaret with a serious look," Lets go and talk in another room that way you can sit down and eat breakfast while I'll explain everything that has happened since you left.", motioned Tammy towards the direction she had made breakfast for them.

Once the three of them were comfortably seated and eating breakfast, Tammy explained," While you were gone I've managed to get life support going in some areas of the ship and a few more levels up. But good news is that, the power to the turbolifts are restored so we can go and see how bad the damages are in the upper decks. I went to bed late and was woken up with the intruder alarm blaring all the while thinking I might know who and where the intruder was. It was in Main Engineering, surprise. I wasn't as upset by the intruder until I found out who it turned out to be. It was Mrs. Kvamme, she was quite smug mind you and basically told me to tell you Captain that if we don't leave this place she'll go straight to Mr. Cryer and tell him everything! So what do we do now?" finished Tammy.

"I can't believe that Mrs. Kvamme blackmailed us but then again, how is she going to get a reaction from us otherwise. I won't let her do this though, no way am I going to back down without a fight." Jaret growled.

"Alright then Captain, what are your orders?" asked David as he too got seriously worried.

"Something that needs to be done, regardless. Like you Tammy, I have been doing some thinking too about this ship. Since you are in your uniform Tammy, I suggest that David and I find our own quarters on this level and get into our uniform. We have a lot of work ahead of us. I will contact Mr. Cryer and tell him everything. Might as well come clean anyhow, we just have to beat her to the punch. I want the two of you to start gathering crew members. I think it's high time we get this place up and running and I want the ship functioning and with a fair amount of crew members. Beam them over here and tell them about this place, if they agree to join they can and if not, escort them to the brig for I don't want any surprises yet." commanded Jaret with a new air of defiance.

"Aye Captain!" acknowledged both Tammy and David.

The two boys left the room to get ready and Tammy turned around and went back to her computer and worked on hacking into the school's computer systems for the addresses for people that she would think that made a good choice to join them. She also had the medical files of everyone in their town on stand by.

She made a plan first and got to working on it," Let's ask only the young kids since it was found by us as kids and we're coping quite well with it. I'll get the addresses of children ages fourteen and up, no adults though, if any of them are over 19 it will complicate things too much and we don't want that right now. Later on we can consider it but right now we can focus on this age group. I intend to get a crew that will remain loyal to us and to Jaret!"

David later entered main engineering not even fifteen minutes later and found himself bumping into quite a crowd that was talking amongst themselves. He was also in his uniform and thought he should inquire loudly," What is going on here Tammy?"

A head peeked around the corner in a red uniform but with only three circles on his shoulders to indicate a different rank from Jaret, "I assume you are David, head of security? It's a pleasure to meet you. I can't believe I said that for that sounded weird to say. Allow me to introduce my self, I'm Commander Ryan Livingston, Tammy's younger brother. When she beamed me over and explained everything in a heartbeat I agreed to join and since then gave her several suggestions as to who would be perfect in all aspects areas."

David whistled his surprise," Pleasure to meet you too Ryan, I'm sorry sir, Commander. So what is our status sir?"

At that point, Tammy came around the corner and in her hand she had a padd, "We have about 230 members now in all areas of the ship, most of them are in the area of technician, so they'll be working with getting the ship back to normal.. We already have some levels cleared of debris and another good portion of them is in security. So far, no one has turned us down, which is good. As to per my brothers suggestion, we have some new additions among the senior officer staff. Jaret, you, I, Ryan then we have one Lt. John Paul who is chief of Main Engineering. Who will be kicking me out soon so he can coordinate the repairs. Lastly we have Consular Tressa Behamn as Ship's consular if you will for she will be responsible for the mental welfare of the crew. We still can't seem to decide who would be adequate enough for Lt Cmdr. for Ryan can't figure out who would be good for the rank and neither can I. What do you think?"

Lt. Dyck leaned against the wall, "I can't seem to either but you've done well, what about these people here?"

"Oh, they are my staff for Medic Bay, you have a staff that is on Deck 39 so you can take the turbolift there. It's quite a big ship but we will get used to it soon enough." Smiled Tammy.

"Thanks for telling me that, I will head there. Oh, Jaret is in the ready room on the bridge. He will be back when he's done. Ryan, you might want to head that way so you can brief some officers there and also help clear debris as well. It needs it. John can coordinate repairs afterwards.", explained David before heading out.

Tammy nodded and watched David leave with some of the new people. She saw John heading her way and held up her hands to indicate that she was going to leave main engineering and leave the rest of the stuff up to him. Tammy looked to her staff and decided to get to work. She motioned for her staff to follow her. Ryan also grabbed a few officers and told them that they were going to head to the bridge to get things ready.

Meanwhile Jaret was on the bridge in his ready room, talking through the audio link to Mr. Cryer's home. He was frustrated and slammed down his hand on the computer to cut the line off. He shook his head and grumbled something to himself. He leaned back in his chair and smoothed out the wrinkles in his uniform. He sat there quietly thinking to himself, not caring about the noises outside of his door. He assumed that there were people on the bridge clearing out the debris and trying to get things running once again after how many years of not working.

Several hours later Tammy, Ryan, David, John and Tressa was on Deck 10; in a room they labeled as the mess hall, and they were eating their well earned lunch.

Tammy looked to her lunch that consisted of a regular egg salad sandwich with ice tea to drink. She was munching on it slowly, and looked to the others. Ryan was scarfing down a beef taco salad with a side of nachos with a drink of Ice tea. David was playing with his mashed potatoes and stir fry for it was evident that he was thinking on something. John was finishing up his double cheeseburger with onion rings. And Tressa was eating a salad with water.

"Ryan for heavens sake, eat slowly, I don't want you to choke! You must be hungry, and how is that, because I am bone tired." Tressa stated.

Ryan looked to his left and simply said," I'm not tired yet, I was busy helping the technicians clearing the debris by hand and so forth. And yes manual work, it makes  
one hungry you know. At least the entire ship clear of debris and the repairs are on time, the crews are gathered in their assigned rank and quarters. The only thing really left is the bridge, repairs are taking more time than I thought, damage was extensive and we were lucky it is still functional. How can you be tired Tressa, your work is in the area of  
counseling?"

Tressa looked at Ryan and sighed," I had some rough start with almost everyone that I have seen today. They are a bit overwhelmed by all this, and I agree with them. It's a bit to swallow all at once, but they will cope and so will I. I'm surprised that you are adjusting rather well for John has some doubts earlier but that worked out in the end. Tammy and David had a few days to accept their new roles. So that is why I'm tired and I'm getting worried."

"Worried about what Tressa?" asked John as he leaned back when he was done with his lunch.

"Jaret hasn't left his ready room yet and frankly, I'm getting nervous. I mean, no wonder why, look at what we accomplished here and not one single person said no to us. So here we are, worrying away. ", replied Tammy.

"Hey, I agree with Tammy. Actually, I'm surprise this ship even made it here." hinted John.

"What do you mean you are surprised it even made it here?" asked a confused Ryan as he took the time to stop eating as did the others.

"This ship, the Galaxy is made for space you know, not for landing on solid ground. It could be made to land in the future but I'm going off topic here. I looked in the sensor logs, it was attacked in space. They crashed here, so they are definably not from Earth. They are humans true. They are far more advanced than we are, which personally I don't mind now since we have the Galaxy under our command and it's ours to do as we wish.", explained John to the group.

"We know that entire thing John. We found it shortly after we first arrived here. The crew had to abandon the ship prior to putting the ship on autopilot to have it crash here. It was their intention that they come back for it or to leave it to us if they couldn't come back." Tammy announced.

"Okay, but another thing I want to mention, at that time when the Galaxy crashed here, I'm surprised that with the amount of damage it had on the hulls, the ship didn't break up in our atmosphere or explode into one giant fireball when it did hit the surface. All things considering, this is one solid ship that was made. I've also found out, when it crashed here, the sensors reported something odd. I've checked it out, and there is another ship on Earth." John further explained.

"Another ship? Where?" asked Ryan who's curiosity peaked at that comment.

"Never mind that now, we'll deal with that later. Now, we have to focus on the Galaxy and get this ship off the ground and still have control over it." Tammy commented.

"And it will stay that way." said a determined voice which belonged to Jaret. The gang turned around and saw Jaret with a smile on their face.

"Jaret, welcome back sir. Glad to see you came out of the ready room. We have a standing crew of 300, but this ship can carry about 1,500 people. We can get more people later once we get this ship off the ground." informed Lt. Dyck.

"I'm proud of you guys then and good work! Very good to meet you Cmdr. Livingston, Counselor Behamn, and Lt. Paul. Now, we have to talk. For I have some bad news." nodded jaret as he too grabbed a chair and sat down with the rest.

"What happened now?" asked Tammy who groaned.

"Mr. Cryer has been informed but it seemed to me that Mrs. Kvamme beat us to the punch anyway for she told him yesterday when she ran into us in Main Engineering the first time, and anyhow Mr. Cryer is on his way to the police station and is intent on filing a report. He also request that we hand the Galaxy and the technology over to the  
government and military since its wise in his esteem wisdom that children should not have access to such things. I have no intention of letting that happen. We are going down to the police station, just David, Tammy and me, since we are the first to find the place and it should be us that fight for this place. Lt. Paul, get this place ready for space cause come hell or high water, we are going to fly this out no matter what for I'm not handing the Galaxy over to anyone! Not as long as I'm Captain of this ship!", said a determined Jaret.

"Glad to know that! When do we leave?" asked Tammy.

"Yeah, when do we?" smiled David feeling very encouraged.

"Right away, I just came back only to get you three and shall we, after all we are in our uniform. Let's make some waves." spoke Jaret as he got up from his chair.

The two also got up and said their good byes to the rest of the staff and headed out the door to Transporter room three on deck 6.

A couple of minutes later, the three beamed themselves into the police station and the person at the front desk saw the three of them appeared out of nowhere. Looked around, and back at his coffee and muttered something underneath his voice. Jaret nodded to the others and walked towards the desk.

"Excuse me? Where the Chief's office, I and my comrades here have some urgent business with the chief", inquired Jaret.

The person at the desk nodded, unable to still comprehend what he just witness and extended a shaking finger that pointed the way to his boss' office.

"Thanks have a good day." smiled Tammy as the three left the desk and headed towards the door labeled with the name of the police Chief. Jaret knocked on the door and waited for a response.

"Enter!" barked the voice.

Jaret and the others nodded and in they walked inside. Once inside the three of them received a shock, inside the office, was Mr. Cryer who was also with another man whom Jaret assumed that it was Chief O'Hara.

"What the..." stuttered David in the middle of his shocked expression.

"Ahh, you are just in time. Jaret, Tammy, and David, please meet Chief O' Hara, who is the person who you will hand this Galaxy' over to and he will make sure it ends up in the right hands instead of the hands of young children.", smiled Mr. Cryer.

"We're not as young as you like to think. I have news for you, it's Captain Pieper, Dr. Livingston and Lt. Dyck to you. And as for handing the Galaxy over to you, we are not going to do it. We have together decided to take it upon ourselves to find the original people who commanded this mighty vessel. You have no clue what the Galaxy meant to those people, and they were attacked by an unknown force. They were forced to leave their only homes in the hopes that this ship would be found by us or by them when they came back. Now we know far more than you'll ever know. Speaking of which we know this has much responsibility to bear and we are sorry that we have neglected school and we will rectify this once we finish what we started. We owe those people that much weather they are dead or alive." Growled Tammy.

Jaret could only stare at Tammy, because it was much unexpected that she would speak so harshly to two adults who were currently in shock over what they have heard.

"Well, given the fact that you say that you are prepared for this, May I ask how can you three hope to get that ship off the ground, and command it?", asked Mr. Cryer calmly.

"Believe me, I have thought of that some time ago but we have prepared for everything. Right now, we have a standing crew of 300. We have also thought of what we can do as a compromise. We still want you to know that we appreciate that you know what is best for us, but believe us, we know what we still want to do, and deciding so we thought it might be prudent to still let you know what is going on. It goes both ways, we offer suggestions and opinions; same applies to you to us. ", sighed Jaret.

"Well, it seems that you have thought a great deal of this and from your speech Dr. Livingston, I can see that you guys are still determined. Very well, I accept that compromise. One question though before you go, how are you going to get that ship off the ground with my school on top of it?" asked Mr. Cryer.

"I think I'll leave that part to my chief Engineer. We must be really going, for I have much to inform and to learn. Thank you for your time. Now will you excuse us…" nodded a pleased Jaret as his hand rose to his combadge on his chest and touched it once, "Transporter room 3, three to beam up."

Before Chief O' Hara could say anything, the trio disappeared and he just stared in complete shock. Looking to Mr. Cryer and he asked," Are we doing the right thing?"

"I don't think we have a choice. They are going to do this with or without our support. I have to let Mrs. Kvamme know about this, as well as the other teachers on my staff and various schools for their students will not be in class for awhile till this gets all sorted out. " Pointed out Mr. Cryer.

The Trio arrived back on the Galaxy in the transporter room, then Jaret nodded to the officer and the two of them stepped off the pad and walked out the door. Tammy and David followed suit until they stopped at front of the turbolift's door.

Jaret then turned around and looked at Tammy," Well done Dr. Livingston, you handle it very well. Lt. Dyck, get the sensors back online because I have a feeling that this secret is going to reach the press somehow and then the enemies will be tipped off by listening in on Earth. Plus they know where the Galaxy crashed and I don't want to take any chances on meeting them unprepared." commanded Jaret.

"Aye sir, I'll get to it right away." acknowledge David.

Tammy shook her head and said, "I know, keep on working. I have to get back to my trainees anyway. So what are you up to now?"

The Turbo lift doors opened and Jaret and David stepped in and turned to Tammy "I'm going to search the computer and read up on James's logs and learn more about the man. After all I might get a chance to meet him. Learning more of him helps me to  
become a wise leader." explained Jaret as the door closed.

Tammy nodded and sighed, she headed off in another direction to take another turbolift to deck 12.

Jaret and David were on their way to the bridge. The door swished open and he stepped onto a very thriving and busy bridge. He went to his ready room and turned to David," I'm going to be busy so let me know if anything happens. Ryan, you have the bridge again." ,spoke Capt. Pieper quickly and he stepped inside his ready room and left Ryan with his jaw on the ground. David just grunted and started to work on his task.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

The very next day, David finally finished his task. Then suddenly the room lights went dim and red, the Red Alert wail came on and David was shocked. The door to the Captain's room swished open and there stood a very annoyed Jaret ,"What is going on Lt. Dyck!", and walked over to his chair. Ryan hurriedly jumped up and stood aside as the Jaret sat down in the seat that Ryan was occupying.

David looked about his console and reported," The external sensors turned on, which I had no intention of doing. I thought I was working on the internal, but I guess I did something. Sir, on the surface, outside the school there is a large mass of a crowd standing about. May I turn on the audio sensors as well?"

"Do so David, I'm curious now." calmed down Jaret.

David turned on the audio and the entire bridge staff heard the noises and voices.

"I'm telling you chief, I don't understand this. The witness reported something strange, three unusual people appeared out of nowhere and attacked this girl with a phaser? Sir, this is like science fiction, and I don't think they're telling the whole thing."

"No, they are telling the truth because I know this because of my earlier experience. I just hope Capt. Pieper is listening in on this." said a familiar voice.

"Jaret that is Chief O' Hara isn't it?" asked a startled David.

"I'm afraid so, Lt. Dyck, please escort a medical team to the scene, I'll inform Dr. Livingston.", ordered Jaret.

"Aye sir." acknowledged David as he left the bridge.

"Dr. Livingston, please meet Lt. Dyck and his security team with your Medical team to transporter room one." informed Cmdr. Livingston by intercom.

"Okay, will do.", replied Tammy's voice as she signed off.

Outside the school, Chief O' Hara was busy talking to some of his officers in charge while the rest of the police force kept the reporters and the crowd of curious people at bay. Paramedics were on the scene to attend the injured girl with a very puzzled look on  
their faces for they knew not how to treat her wounds. All of the sudden the crowd, and the police went quiet, Chief O' Hara looked up to see Lt. Dyck, Dr. Livingston and a few unknown people dressed in the same uniform he had saw earlier. He walked towards Lt. Dyck seeing that Dr. Livingston and her people in the blue uniform headed towards the paramedics and the injured girl.

"Lt. Dyck, thank goodness you are here. I trust you heard what had happened here?" asked Chief O' Hara.

"Only a bit but please what else can you tell me on what happened here?", nodded David.

"One of the children noticed her first. She was looking about the place as if she was looking for a way in. They think she was searching the walls. Anyhow, the child introduced herself to the witness who was asking her what she was doing. All she replied was that her name was Lisa Crusher and that she had to find a way in to save her people. But then these three armed people came down, but the witness reported that they did not look entirely human for one thing. They had pale gray skin, black hair, and pointed ears where ears are not supposed to be and they didn't speak any English at all. They came right after Lisa Crusher and fired at her. From what the witness said, the girl defended herself and fired back, and in the process she managed to injure one of the strangers and green blood was seen to spill from the wound. Before the attack occurred, the children asked her how she got here and Lisa replied that she "beamed" down, whatever that means. And just now, the girl Lisa wears the same uniform as you three did when you came to my office earlier." explained Chief O' Hara.

Then Tammy came up to Chief O' Hara and David and informed them, "Lt. Dyck, Mr. O' Hara, I need to get this girl back to Medic Bay, from the looks of her, she is one of ours. The computer in my tricorder indicated that she is one of the old crew before they left here. She is seriously injured but in no way life threatening. Now is there anything else you want to do before I take her back?"

"Go do your thing Doctor, Lt. Dyck, all the information is at your disposal, good luck on finding her attackers. You guys wanted to know what happened to the original crew, you found one way of finding out.", Chief O'Hara shook his head as he left the two by themselves and ordered his officers and everyone to clear the area until further notice.

Back in Medic Bay, an hour later, Tammy sat down for her first cup of hot chocolate in a long while. She was worried about the girl for she was still unconscious but nothing else was wrong with her. She looked to her computer on the desk and looked at the picture of a Lisa Crusher, the picture showed her as a young child, not the same image as she is now. It was all too apparent that her people had survived the initial encounter with their enemies when the fled the Galaxy.

" Am I interrupting anything?" asked a voice.

Tammy looked up and saw Jaret standing in the doorway of her office," No, you're not interrupting anything. I just wish that she would wake up, it would be nice to know what happened and the waiting is really driving me crazy."

"I know what you mean. I read David's report and it sounds serious enough. I just informed Mr. Cryer that the Galaxy is space worthy. John managed to get the repairs done very well but the hard part is telling Mr. Cryer that he won't have a school after we are done leaving Earth. I also talked to your parents as well, they are mad at you for lying to them but they understand. Ryan is accepting this well. Many people, our new crew is handling this tremendously. So, who is she?" asked Jaret as he sat down in the nearest chair and leaned back.

"Her name is Lisa Crusher, daughter of the Chief medical doctor Sherilyn Crusher. Right now, the question remains, why did she come back especially after all these years. Did you find anything about her attackers?" explained Tammy.

"Yes, Lisa's attackers were Romulans. I read some of Capt. James report on them and to me they are very bad news. They've been enemies with them for a very long time. How's your patient?" informed a grim Jaret.

"She's still asleep, but the treatment went well. I hope within an hour, she'll awake and them we will have all our questions answered sooner than we can ask for." guessed Tammy.

Jaret stood up, and nodded," Okay, then I will see you later. Good night." and Jaret left Tammy's office.

An hour later went by slowly; Tammy was busy reading some medical information for her training. She was startled by an unfamiliar voice calling out. Tammy looked up and saw that the child had finally woke up from her ordeal. She got up from the desk and entered the main treatment area of Medic Bay.

"How are you feeling Lisa? No, don't be afraid, I'm not here to hurt you. You're on Earth, Lisa, calm down. I know you had a rough ordeal with the Romulans, you're safe. Captain Pieper won't let them hurt you again. My name is Dr. Tammy Livingston, and I will later introduce you to the captain but can you tell me what happened before you arrived on Earth?" asked Tammy.

Lisa's face went pale as she started to remember what happened to her," Before I arrived here, I was on another planet, similar to Earth. In your time of 1979, I was only three years old when I left my home. I remember clearly that day, the Romulans were  
attacking constantly and we were sustaining heavy damage. Our life support was slowly being drained; and if we stayed we could've died. The Captain made the hard choice and gave us orders to abandon the ship quietly. We didn't want the Romulans to know what our intention was. So we just left. We found another place and called it home. We, I mean I just grew up there for the next 12 years and we lived in complete isolation. Now, the Romulans have found Aldrea and they attacked us. They've started to round up the people but I hid and found a shuttle and came here. I came here to get help but when I left Aldrea's atmosphere, I was detected and they followed me here. They wanted to stop me from reaching the Galaxy. I was hit badly but I crashed here, near by as I can. I ran here but to find that the Galaxy was buried underneath the building. At first I was dismayed, but I was hoping that enough of the sensors were on and that they would detect me and detect the Romulans but I guess that didn't happen. Thank you for helping me when it was needed. Now they probably think I'm dead now, I hope. Is there anything I can help you with?" shakily asked Lisa as she sighed.

"Yes, is there any chance that the Romulans could find out that you survived and they are still hanging around just in case to finish you off if you didn't die? I'm sorry if I upset you but allow me to introduce myself, I'm Captain Jaret Pieper. Welcome aboard." asked Jaret as he entered the main room.

"Please to make your acquaintance Captain. I have a feeling that you already know my name, so I'll answer your question. It's possible that they are still here and my suggestion is to get a crew rounded up so you don't have to take them on alone." advised Lisa. Lisa  
looked at Jaret and was surprised to find that he was about two years older than her.

"We are way ahead of you, soon this ship will be fully operational but since you are here, perhaps it's the wise choice I offer you a command. This is because of your knowledge about this ship, and we are just learning about the wonders of this vessel. What do you think?" smiled Jaret.

"A command, are you sure sir?" asked a shocked Lisa.

"Yes, we are in need of a Lieutenant commander. Please accept this post." nodded Jaret.

"Aye sir, I do so gladly. Where do I report to get the uniform?" agreed Lisa as she got up from the bio bed.

"Get your uniform from Lt. Dyck, he's on deck 36. He will instruct you to your quarters. Report to the bridge after you have settled in.", replied Jaret.

Lisa nodded and left Medic Bay, leaving Tammy and Jaret by themselves. Then suddenly the room shuddered with small electric explosions and the ground heaved beneath them. Jaret and Tammy were thrown onto the floor in a matter of seconds. After it stopped for a brief second, Jaret helped Tammy up from the floor when David contacted them via combadge.

"We're under attack, the ship and the school is taking a beating. The Romulans must have found out about Lisa's miraculous survival. Your orders sir?" explained David.

Jaret brushed off some dust off his uniform and looked at Tammy. She nodded to him to indicate that she was fine.

"David, put the shields up around the school, I'll be up to the bridge shortly. I'm going to have a little chat with our friends." assigned Jaret as he left Medic Bay.

"Yes sir." acknowledged David as he cut off communication.

The room was silent, and Tammy looked around and sighed, "Great, now I'm left to clean up the mess here again."

On the Bridge, David and Ryan were busy keeping the ship and the school intact from the weapons fire from the Romulans who were firing from space. It was hard to keep everything from falling apart as they just had finished repairs only to have it damaged again. The door swished open and entered Jaret and Lisa. Lisa immediately went to her station and sat down. David nodded to Jaret to let him know that everything is all set.

"Very well, let's get this over and done with. Hail them." replied Jaret sternly.

The view screen changed to an image of an old face, black hair, pointed ears. It appeared male to Jaret and he noticed that the person seemed surprised.

"I'm Captain Jaret Pieper of the USS Galaxy. May I ask you what you are doing?" introduced Jaret.

The person shifted uneasily and sighed, "I am Captain Tomahawk, serving under the military of Romulas. We have declared you a threat to the Romulan Empire. Now  
would you please hand over our prisoner that you have in your custody?"

Lisa gasped and turned around to look at Jaret.

"I think we have a problem here Tomahawk, you see, she is not your prisoner. She never was to start with. You however just attacked her people without warning and you came here to kill her. I don't think so, try again." Advised Jaret.

"How dare you dare insult me!" scoffed Tomahawk.

David stood erect after hearing Tomahawk's challenge. He had his fingers poised over the command buttons to return fire if he was order to do so. He hoped it won't come down to it because he knows that John will have his head when more of the relays gets fried if he had to fire the main phaser. Not counting furthering damage the surface and its surroundings by such a response.

"I'm not insulting you Tomahawk, I just want to hear the truth for once in your life." defended Jaret.

"Then would you consider coming aboard my ship so we can solve this terrible situation from becoming out of hand?" suggested Tomahawk slyly.

Ryan had a sinking feeling that something like this was going to get suggested and looked to David and Lisa before looking at Jaret when he responded.

"That would be agreeable, tomorrow at 0800 hours?" implied Jaret.

The view screen flipped off to a dark view to indicate that Tomahawk agreed to it. Jaret heaved a sigh of relief, realizing that things are going to get a bit tricky from here on out.

"Jaret, you are going to go aboard Tomahawk's vessel, to talk to him. Are you bloody insane?" asked Ryan concerned.

"I agree with the commander, do you know the risk of doing this Captain? Tomahawk doesn't seemed to be a person anyone can trust." pointed out David as he stand down the red alert wail and returned the ships system to normal operations. Then officers started to repair what they can till John could send some of his officers to help officially.

Jaret turned his attention to David, "It doesn't matter right now, what is done is done. I have one question though why haven't we detected their presence before till now. What changed?"

"I can answer that question sir; the Romulans have a device employed in their ship known as the cloaking shields. For years, we have tried to break that weakness of our sensors to find them. We still can't obviously." Explained Lisa.

"That really puts us at a disadvantage then, who knows how many more cloaked ships are out there orbiting Earth? I have a bad feeling about this." Groaned David.

The turbo lift doors swished opened and Tammy entered the bridge. She looked at Jaret and shook her head.

"Is there something wrong doctor?" asked Jaret cautiously.

"I have people up on the surface wounded, and I have no orders to go up there and lets see, assist them? By now, if you have noticed, the police and Mr. Cryer are in the gym, what's left of it, hollering for us." grated Tammy.

Jaret winced at Tammy's scathing words and realized that he forgot about the surface while trying to defend his actions for going on board Tomahawk's ship.

"Sorry doc, we sort of got sidetracked. You can go and assist and I'll see if I can get Mr. Cryer and Chief O' Hara here. I'll bring them to the observation lounge?" inquired Ryan nervously.

"Do that and I'll be waiting. Doctor, I expect a report of any injuries of either on board here or the surface. I like to know how bad it got. Lt. Dyck, please inform Lt. Cmdr. Paul that he is to put a team together to assist in debris removal at the school. I want a recommendation from him regarding the school and the ship situation as well on my desk first thing in the morning prior to my meeting with Tomahawk." ordered Jaret. He turned around and headed for his ready room.

Tammy nodded to her brother and left the bridge with David following after her. Ryan was left back in command of the bridge yet again. He sighed, so much for his second day of command. He got up and looked to Lisa, "Would you kindly inform transporter room one to lock onto Mr. Cryer and Chief O'Hara. Have someone from security to escort them to the observation lounge.

"Yes commander. Anything else?" asked Lisa.

"I need a break is what I need but I don't see that happening anytime too soon." Sighed Ryan in response. He just walked about the bridge, talking to the various people who were helping in fixing some of the damage that has happened at the result of them being attacked. So much for repairing the ship only to have it back the way it was before.

The next day came too fast for Jaret's liking. He dreaded what he will come face to face with Tomahawk in the next few hours. He sighed and looked down to his desk, he shook his head. He was reading the recommendation that John had made regarding the  
school. He hated to tell the principal the bad news. He spent the few hours figuring out a way to inform his staff of what will need to be done. He groaned in frustration, he leaned back in his chair. The door to his ready room beeped to him indicating that someone wanted entry.

"Enter." allowed Jaret.

The door opened up to reveal Ryan standing there; he entered the room and gestured to the empty chair in front of the desk. Jaret nodded his approval. Ryan sat down and crossed his arms across his chest.

"I read John's report. I don't like the news very much. I hate to say it, but the last thing I would want to do is tear down the school so we could leave the surface." grumbled Ryan.

"I know, but the damage was extensive, there is nothing we can do about it. Mr. Cryer is not going to be pleased with this. I had to spend two hours with him and Chief O'Hara yesterday regarding the attack. To be honest, I don't blame them for being upset; too  
many people were injured in that attack. Luckily no one died." nodded Jaret in agreement.

"So, when are you going to tell Mr. Cryer the bad news?" asked Ryan.

"Soon, I have no choice. I'm due on the Warbird in less than two hours. Hopefully he won't argue too much. I haven't even bothered telling them about my intended visit to the enemy ship." revealed Jaret.

Ryan leaned forward and sighed, "Well, is there any additional orders you want to give me before you leave. I'm helping John with the teams who will be assisting in the dismantling the school and to prepare the ship to leave the surface."

"Just do it as safely as you can, and quickly too. I don't know how long our situations with the Romulans will last." advised Jaret strongly.

Ryan got up and nodded his understanding and left the room. Jaret was once again alone with his thoughts. He thought to himself and decided that it was time to contact Mr. Cryer and tell him that bad news. He turned to his monitor on his desk, punched in a few key controls and waited for a response. When the screen came to life, there was a middle age man, with graying hair, a tired look to his eyes. He recognized Jaret and greeted him, "Hi Jaret, so what brings you to contact me? I wasn't expecting a call for several days now? I've got things squared away with the school board since its Monday and well, no students are in classes. They're not happy but it's out of my hands. What can I do for you?"

Jaret heaved a sigh before he continued, "It's about the school. My chief Engineer, John Paul, have went over the damage reports of both the school and the ship. I'm afraid the attack we suffered yesterday has caused enough of a serious damage to the school that  
is beyond repair. We had hoped to move the school intact in order to have the Galaxy to leave the surface but now that option is no long available."

"I see, so now what?" asked Mr. Cryer.

"My crew will assist in removing anything that is not damaged, such as school supplies and then tear the school down. Perhaps, after this crisis is over, we can assist in rebuilding the school. Since I feel partially responsible for the damage caused by the  
attack." suggested Jaret.

"That sounds like a good idea, can we start right away? I'll notify the school board that this school will be temporary out of service. Thanks for letting me know. When do you want to do this?" agreed Mr. Cryer.

"Very well, I'll contact Lt. Paul, and we will get started right away. Again, my apologies for what happened. I wish you the best of luck." signed off Jaret.

Jaret got up from his chair and went to the door; he turned back and looked at his ready room, shook his head and stepped through the opened door that lead to the bridge. He saw Lt. Cmdr. Crusher in the Captain's chair. He strode towards her, and nodded to her. She saw him and got up from the seat and sat down into the commander's chair. She looked at him as Jaret sat down in his chair.

"How did things go?" asked Lisa.

"I've explained to Mr. Cryer the situation with the school. I didn't bother tell him about my impending trip to the Romulan vessel. I gave Ryan the go ahead to give John a hand with the tearing down of the school and to prepare the Galaxy for our trip off the surface. Anything to report?" explained Jaret.

"Tammy just informed me about needing medical supplies. The ones that were left here are outdated. She just contacted the hospital about it and they are already lending a hand. The replicators however are having a picky time with the medical aspect. As John  
is a bit busy at the moment, I'm sure once this is over, the replicators in medic bay will be functioning enough that we won't need organic supplies from the hospital. David is currently training the new people. Our crew has grown, I'm happy to report that we have a crew of 1,500." informed Lisa.

"Wow, I'm impressed. Where did all these kids come from?" whistled Jaret in amazement.

"That's what I was trying to figure out, but Ryan said that most of the province volunteered, guess word spread fast." chuckled Lisa.

"Great, now, let's get down to planning. I want to be completely prepared. Tell me about the Romulans. What should I expect." suggested Jaret. The two started conversing about their proposed plans.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Meanwhile on board the Romulan vessel, Captain Tomahawk was waiting for the moment when Jaret comes on board. He was in his ready room eating his morning breakfast. While he was doing that, he was also reading what he can about Jaret's profile. He had one of his people hack into Earth's primitive computer systems and got Jaret's school files. He needed to know what to expect. What he read was not pleasing him, and troubled him at the same time. He growled at the screen which displayed the information. Suddenly the door beeped indicating that someone wanted in. He leaned back in his chair and yelled, "Enter!"

The door swished open to reveal a junior officer with more information. He bowed before he handed it to Tomahawk and bowed once more and left the room quickly. The room was quiet once again. Tomahawk looked at the datapadd he had just received. He set it beside his computer, downloaded the information from the padd to the monitor. He saw the reports the sensors were picking up.

"They're moving faster than I thought." Murmured Tomahawk. He scrolled down the screen, quickly scanning the information.

Several hours later, on the Galaxy, 0800 hours finally arrived. Jaret was walking with David and Ryan down the corridor that will lead to transporter room one.

"Are you sure you don't want to have a weapon just in case?" asked David hesitantly.

Jaret rolled his eyes and looked at David, "For the last and final time David, yes I'm sure. Please stop questioning my judgment."

Ryan chuckled, "Relax David, Lisa talked to him about the Romulans, and I'm sure he's well informed. I have no doubt that Tomahawk will be informed about Jaret too. In fact, I'm expecting that. Just let us do our jobs, and let Jaret do his. Jaret, we will keep an ear and eye out for you. Good luck, I better head back to the bridge and get ready. John says that the last of the school foundation is almost gone. After that, we should be able to move through the ground now that the weight is gone. See you in a while."

Jaret saw Ryan hurriedly leave to head for the bridge. He noticed that David and him had already reached transporter room one. He sighed and entered the doorway. David followed somberly. Jaret nodded to the transporter operating officer and got up on the  
transporter pad. He turned around and looked to David, "I'll be okay. Now, head back to the bridge and help Ryan."

David nodded, "Aye sir, good luck Jaret."

Jaret nodded to the officer, "Let's do it."

The transporter officer started the procedure to beam Jaret over to the Romulan vessel. In several seconds, Jaret disappeared from the Galaxy. David looked on with great concern and turned to the officer, "Keep a tight lock on him, and pull him back the slightest instant that something goes wrong."

The officer nodded in understanding and kept an eye on his readings. David sighed and turned to leave the Transporter room.

Jaret finally transported on to the Romulan Vessel, and surprisingly it took several seconds. He looked around and wasn't pleased with what he saw. He was surrounded by several Romulan guards with phaser rifles. He also briefly noticed that the ship is still on active alert. He sighed and wondered what he got himself into now. One of the guards behind him pushed him with the butt of the rifle, urging him to follow the ones in front of him. Meanwhile he wondered why Tomahawk wasn't here to greet him. He reluctantly  
followed the guards to where ever they were taking him.

He walked through several corridors and felt like he was in a virtual maze. How was he ever going to get out of this situation? Finally the group stopped in front of a door, one of the guards pushed a button on the side to open the door. He stepped aside as did everybody else, and motioned for Jaret to enter the room. Jaret entered the room and heard the door closed behind him. The guards never came in to join him. He looked around; the room looked quite similar to the observation lounge. The only exception to this room from the other is that there weren't any windows. He went to the nearest chair and sat down to wait for Tomahawk to arrive. He wasn't too pleased at the moment and starting stewing away.

Several minutes came and went, when finally the door opened, Tomahawk stepped through. Jaret turned around in his chair and faced him. He noticed the smug look on Tomahawk's face and wondered what he was up to now.

"Welcome aboard Capt. Pieper, I trust there was no problem in getting here?" greeted Tomahawk.

"Well, considering I came here on good faith and with no weapons, I did not appreciate being greeted by a group of armed guards and you in no sight. I believe that was inappropriate not to meet me in the transporter room." pointed out Jaret calmly.

"Please forgive me, but my other officers of my command insisted on that for my safety. Now what can I do for you? We must solve this terrible dilemma." Tomahawk apologized.

He sat down across from where Jaret was seated. He leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest, and waited. Jaret had a sinking feeling about this meeting and knew that Tomahawk knew more than he was letting on. Fine he decided; he can play this game too.

"Why have you suddenly decided that we are such a threat to you? We just found the ship and we had no intention of finding your people, only the people who left the ship on Earth. Secondly, what happened to Lisa Crusher's people on Aldrea?" asked Jaret.

"The reason why we have decided that you are a threat, well, you have found that vessel. In order to answer your second question, Lisa's people are fine. In fact I have several of them in my brig. I bring them as hostages in order to get what I want. What I want is Lisa, if she was to be returned to me I will leave you be. I must insist that the ship you have will have to be destroyed, to prevent any future incidents." Smiled Tomahawk.

Jaret was stunned to learn that Tomahawk had hostages of Lisa's people. This is not what he expected and neither Lisa nor he prepared for that possibility. How low can Tomahawk go?

"You have her people on board? I won't just hand her over because you have hostages. How am I to know that they are alive and unharmed? I'm letting you know now that threats don't bother me and I don't respond to them." answered Jaret calmly.

"You doubt me at my word? You who have been a Captain for only five days? You have no experience in leadership and you are not qualified to make this choice. Lisa should be the one to make this choice. Ask her!" threatened Tomahawk angrily.

"Excuse me? Who showed up on my front door? I had no choice, and I believe that I made the right choice. I won't ask her because I know what her answer will be and I speak for her because I'm her Captain!" disagreed Jaret.

Tomahawk bristled with anger; he didn't expect blatant defiance from that boy who was hardly an adult. Here he was getting mocked by a child! He stood up quickly, "You want to know if the survivors are alive and unharmed? Follow me, I'll show you."

Jaret quickly got up from the chair and had to rush to get behind Tomahawk as he angrily rushed to the door and stepped out. Jaret followed and heard Tomahawk bark an order to the guards that were stationed outside of the room. He followed Tomahawk down a series of long corridors until they reached the turbo lift. It was very crowded as he and Tomahawk were followed by his guards. Several more minutes went by the time they reached the deck where the brig was on. Tomahawk motioned for Jaret to step out and he did so.

"Turn to your right please, I'll allow you to talk to the prisoners for five minutes, after that please come back to the door to be let out." informed Tomahawk coldly.

Jaret nodded his understanding and prepared himself. The door opened and Jaret entered. Once the door has closed behind him, he was stunned by what he saw. Sure enough, Tomahawk didn't lie about having hostages. The people he saw had that beaten down look. He stepped forward and he had a hard time walking for in his mind, he was greatly worried about what will happen. He can't attack the warbird because there was innocent people held captive here. He dreaded the agreement with Tomahawk later and knew that he was cornered. He didn't like this one bit.

"Excuse me, who is in charge here?" asked Jaret gently.

A crowd surrounded Jaret, he noticed that many were scared but some of them had that doubt look on their face. Suddenly a person was pushing towards to meet Jaret.

"I'm in charge here." said a haggard middle age man.

"Hello, I'm Captain Jaret Pieper, I'm in charge of the Galaxy. I'm here to hopefully negotiate your release and your eventual return to Aldrea." introduced Jaret.

"You command the Galaxy? So you found it, I hope it still works for your sake. I'm the original captain of the Galaxy." surprised the person.

"Captain James, it's an honor to meet you in the flesh. I see that you are all unharmed but to be honest, I don't know how long that will last under Tomahawk's command. I have a bad feeling about this ploy of his. I'm doubtful that it will end peacefully and I'm trying to free you all, but Tomahawk's not making it easy. Any advice?" asked Jaret.

"Tomahawk will not let any of us go. He will wage war on you and everything he sees as a threat to him. I don't think the Romulan Empire is aware of this situation which means he's operating outside of the chain of command. I hope you know what you are doing? You are only a child, how is that you can be a Captain? I wish you the best of luck regardless. I admire your courage in facing Tomahawk." advised James.

"I may be young, but believe me, age and wisdom don't necessarily go hand in hand. I must go soon, Tomahawk is expecting me back. I think my time is up here. Please take care of yourself in the mean time and don't do anything too rashly. I will do what I can to alleviate your suffering. Lisa has told me all of you, and I hold you and your people in the highest regards." Jaret smiled as he turned around and walked back towards the door, but stopping to see if anyone was injured. He wanted to make sure that they are unharmed for the most part.

Meanwhile, back on the Galaxy, Cmdr. Ryan Livingston was pacing on the bridge. It's been six hours since Jaret left the Galaxy and here it was already getting late. He was feeling very uncomfortable. Lisa and Tressa were getting annoyed at him pacing the floor but none said anything yet. He stopped several times in his pacing to look at the view screen. He looked at David and shrugged his shoulders.

"Ryan, calm down, I'm sure Jaret is fine. Be patient please, and so far everything is okay. I got some good news though. As soon as Jaret comes back, we can get the Galaxy up in the air." reported Lisa reassuringly.

Ryan stopped and looked at Lisa; he sighed and sat down in his chair.

"You're right. I'm sorry; I guess I'm a bit nervous. How long will it take to get the ship off the surface?" asked Ryan.

"Not very long." responded a voice.

Ryan turned around in his chair to look behind him. John just exited the turbo lift and went towards Ryan and joined him by taking the seat to Ryan's left.

"That was quick. So everything is ready then?" guessed Ryan.

"It took all day to remove the debris, the school, the surrounding power lines and all that but everything is done. I and my crew thanks you so very much for giving us a tough job to do. This won't take long as it stands, I've tripled check the systems and everything is ready to go. Have you heard anything from Jaret yet?" informed John.

"No, I haven't heard from Jaret. I have a feeling he'll be back soon though. I want you to head back to engineering, I'll signal you when Jaret gets back that way you can warm the engines up." suggested Ryan.

"I'll coordinate with David; we might need weapons on a notice moment. Getting through the surface is going to be quite taxing on our power supply and on our hulls." explained John as he got up and headed towards the turbo lift. David decided to join John as he overheard Ryan's suggestion.

It was very late into the day when Lisa got a message on her console from the transporter room.

"Sir, I'm receiving a message from the Romulan vessel, it says that Capt. Pieper will be heading back in one minute, as we are to ready for his arrival." Alerted Lisa.

"About bloody well time. It's been too long for me to be comfortable about this situation. Okay, inform transporter room one to receive him. Call the senior officers to the observation lounge, let the officer in the transporter room know where he is to come." ordered Ryan as he got up from his chair. An officer came up to him and nodded.

"Lisa, come on, lets get going. Lieutenant you have the bridge." commanded Ryan.

"Aye sir." acknowledged the officer who took Ryan's place on the bridge. Another officer took Lisa's place on her station.

"What happened up there that required a talking that lasts 11 hours!", grumbled Ryan.

"You never know, but Jaret must of wanted to make sure there wasn't any loose ends or holds for the Romulans to betray us." Guessed Lisa as she struggled to stay a pace of Ryan who was stomping away madly.

The two of them went to their right and entered the doorway that leads to the observation lounge. There they will await Jaret's arrival.

In transporter room one; Jaret was arriving back to the Galaxy. He looked at the officer.

"Sir, Cmdr. Livingston told me to tell you that the senior officers will be in the observation lounge." informed the officer.

Jaret stepped off the transporter pad and nodded his thanks. He left the room and headed for the nearest turbolift. He ran into Tammy who was on her way as well.

"Jaret, you're back. You were gone a long time. How did things go?" asked Tammy concerned.

"Not too well, I'll explain it all when we get to the observation lounge. Please, join me." invited Jaret as he got into the turbolift.

Tammy nodded and got in; she stood quietly by his side and had to look at his face. She knew instinctively that something was wrong. Jaret uttered the command to get the turbolift to the bridge. The turbolift moved upwards. The two just stood there in silence,  
waiting for either of them to say something. Several seconds later, the turbolift stopped at the bridge, the door swished open and Jaret was the first out of the turbolift. He strode his way to the tactical station to converse with the tactical officer while Tammy made her way towards the observation lounge ahead of her.

In the observation lounge, everyone was seated with the exception of Tammy and Jaret. Ryan was getting anxious and kept looking at the door. The door opened up and Ryan got up only to stop in mid air. Tammy entered the room and he sat down again. Tammy went to the empty seat that was in between Lisa and Tressa.

"I ran into Jaret on my way here, he's talking with the tactical officer at the moment, it doesn't look good guys. Call it a gut feeling."

Several seconds after Tammy sat down the door opened up to reveal Jaret's arrival. He immediately took his seat at the head of the table. Once he sat down, he looked at the faces of his senior officers. He heaved a sigh and got into explaining why he was gone for 11 hours. He was tired but this had to be done and dealt with now.

"I see that everyone's here, good, now I have several things to go over but I want to hear progress reports." explained Jaret as he looked towards John and David.

"Everything is ready for lift off sir. I've checked and re-checked the systems. Everything is ready. It might be a bit rocky considering most of the ship is under ground." informed John proudly.

"As for defense capabilities, we are primed and ready." also informed David.

Jaret nodded his approval and looked to Lisa and started there, "I have some news for you Lisa. It's not all good I'll warn you. Tomahawk has several of your people on board his vessel. He calls them his prisoners or hostages in regards to you. He wants you back or else. I've told him that you are not his prisoner neither are your people. I've got the distinct feeling that he is operating without the Romulan Empire's knowledge. That much I got from my meeting with the former captain of the Galaxy." Explained Jaret.

"Capt. James is there? Are my people being treated fairly?" asked a shocked and surprised Lisa.

"Yes they are alright but I don't know for how long they can last under Tomahawk's generosity. As for our situation with the Romulans, I'm sorry to say that it's not over. As we speak, Tomahawk's ship or ships are leaving Earth's orbit. We are to meet him at the Romulan border. He's been nice enough to give me the coordinates for it. The reasons why he wants us there is that because he wants our ship pitted against his. Winner takes all I guess. This might not work out, it might work but who knows what the fates are." explained Jaret calmly.

"We have to go one on one with them? Is that the only alternative?" gulped Ryan in fear.

"This is the only way we can rescue Lisa's people. I know it's a lot to take in. I want each of you to inform your departments. Everyone should know of this and make the choice weather to stay here or stay behind. I'm going to contact Mr. Cryer and Chief  
O'Hara to inform him of what is going on. I'll leave you to your choice. Dismissed." replied Jaret.

Slowly people left but before they did, they each gave Jaret a reassuring squeeze on his shoulders. Soon enough everyone left the observation lounge and Jaret was the only person left in the room. He leaned back and sighed. He knew what he was going up against and it wasn't a good sign.

The next day arrived too soon for Ryan's comfort. He was alone in the turbolift that was heading its way to the Bridge. He heaved a huge sigh and rubbed his eyes. He had a hard time sleeping last night after what he and his sister faced when they got home. He grimaced as he remembered how Tammy and he were explaining to their parents what they were planning to do. When Jaret had told them what had to be done in order to free Lisa's people, he had already made his choice. He knew Tammy did in the same instance as he. Since both of them are senior officers, they had decided to stay and fight. At first their parents argued with them, pleaded with them at the end but they refused to give in. They left the house after the fight and slept on board the Galaxy in their own quarters,  
knowing that they had much to do the very next day. The door to the turbolift opened, and Ryan was shocked to find the whole place busy. He noticed John at his station and walked towards him.

"So, you're staying?" asked Ryan after he finished his yawning.

John turned to him and winced as he saw how tired Ryan looked, "I am. I have no regrets. However, you look terrible like so many other people do. My parents on the other hand are a bit pissed off. They are not happy with my decision but they didn't complain too much. I think they are proud of me but won't admit it. I guess, I slept a bit easier last night than you have." revealed John.

"You got off lucky; Tammy and I had a fight on our hands. In the end they resorted to pleading." Ryan chuckled lightly.

"That is not an easy thing to do though, telling your parents that you are going away to fight a battle and the chance of you not coming back is a pretty real thing." sighed John sadly.

"I know, speaking of which, do you know if anybody left?" asked Ryan hesitantly.

"Everyone's here. At least this fight is for something good." informed John.

"Yeah, I agree. Thanks John, I better goes see Jaret, see how he fared with our two advisors." agreed Ryan as he went his way to Jaret's ready room. He nodded to Lisa who was in the Captain's chair. He walked up to the door way and waited to be let in.

Inside the ready room, Jaret just finished his conversation with Mr. Cryer and Chief O'Hara. He was extremely exhausted. He had a bad night with his parents and knowing parents, just about everybody had the same type of experience. He was pleased to know  
that everyone who signed up is staying on board. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his right hand holding a cup of hot tea. The door suddenly beeped and he straightens up in the chair and barked, "Enter."

The door opened and Ryan walked in quickly, and the door slid shut behind him. He sat down across from Jaret and leaned back. Jaret shook his head as he noticed how easily it took Ryan to get settled into his rank and role on board here. He knew that Ryan was the best possible choice to be his first officer, and so far he hasn't been disappointed yet.

"I assume John told you that everybody is here." greeted Jaret.

"Yes, he did tell me that. How did your conversation with Mr. Cryer and Chief O'Hara go?" asked Ryan.

Jaret sighed and sipped his tea slowly before answering Ryan's question, "Not well, they argued with me quite a bit. I told them that we must do this or innocent's blood will be on our hands. That's something I really don't want on my conscious. So, are we ready?"

Ryan nodded silently; he got up from the chair and headed for the doorway. Jaret set his cup of tea aside on the table and he too got up and joined Ryan. The two stepped back once more onto the bridge. Jaret and Ryan took to their seats and sat down. He noticed  
that Lisa was at her station talking with the helm officer. Tressa has finally decided to join them on the bridge for the first time. He appreciated the offer and he nodded to Ryan to start issuing orders. It was time for the real thing, to get this ship off the ground and to see if they have succeeded in doing this in the right way.

"John, let's get this ship off the ground. Helm, set course off Earth. David, switch us to code blue condition, I want everyone at their assigned stations." commanded Ryan.

"Aye sir, switching to Code blue." acknowledged David.

The bridge erupted into slurry of activity. The lights went to a pale blue; even the panels on the consol were blinking pale blue.

"Engineering reports that they are ready. Ground crews have left the surface. All departments have signed in and are at standby mode." reported Lisa.

"Very well, brace for any impact. Let's go." Nodded Jaret in his approval.

On the surface, the school was removed and portions of the top of the ship was the only thing visibly seen on the ground. All at once, the ground heaved, and the ship came loose of the soil which has kept it hidden for years. The people who were witnessing the event at a safe distance could see the ship finally break free from the ground, causing an eerie groan to be heard. The light of the rising sun glinted off the hull of the ship as it gracefully made its way up into the air. The people who were silently watching were the parents of the crew, they feared the worse but at the same time held hope in their hearts.

Meanwhile, in main engineering, John was watching the readings like a hawk. He hoped that everything will go smoothly. Holding his breath and waiting for the final news that they had breach the atmosphere and into space.

It seemed forever, the entire ship was holding their breath until finally Lisa reported that they have safely reached space with no further damage. Jaret smiled and turned to Ryan and saw that he was grinning.

"We made it, what now?" asked Ryan.

"We make our way to Romulan space. In the meantime, we must practice some combat drills. I want all of us to be prepared. You have the bridge Ryan, I must go see someone." advised Jaret as he got up and headed off the bridge and into the turbolift.

Tressa was a bit taken back by Jaret's quick exit and looked to Ryan and shrugged her shoulders.

"He's going to see Tammy. I know he is, guess he has some concerns to talk through." confirmed Ryan.

"I see, why not me?" asked Tressa silently.

"No offense Tressa, but you are new to us and Jaret trusts Tammy's opinion. I guess you and I haven't been through all that much as they did." pointed out Ryan.

Tressa could see Ryan's point and wasn't as hurt as she was before. It was great that Ryan's reasoning was having a calming effect on her.

"I think Ryan's right, Jaret and Tammy fought to keep this ship in our custody, and they even took charge right away. It made me wonder why Tammy isn't Captain but I guess it's her choice." voiced David.

"She does have leadership qualities, but then again, she is good in her medical field, she takes charge in Medic Bay." smiled Tressa.

"Do I know it! When I was in there for a cut my arm while I was helping on the surface, she gave me the fiercest scowl I seen on her to date. She lectured me to be more careful in the future but I laughed her off by telling her that since I'm a senior officer, no chance of that happening. She gave me one dark look that had me worry on what she'll do as retaliation. I won't cross her in Medic Bay, I know that now. Wished I knew that before but I have to learn somehow." Chuckled Ryan.

In the turbolift, Jaret was on his way to see Tammy. He wanted to talk to her by himself with no one around. He hated that he couldn't approach Tressa yet but he trusted Tammy for the time being. She has a way of saying things that made more sense to him than he could to himself. He has some nagging thoughts left and needed to be reassured so he can move forward. In several seconds, he reached the level that Medic Bay was on. He exited the turbolift and made his way to Medic Bay. When he reached Medic Bay he wasn't surprised to find Tammy hard at work by reading in her office. He knocked on the wall to get her attention and saw that Tammy looked up.

"Come on in Jaret, what's up?" greeted Tammy as she turned off her computer monitor.

Jaret came in and sat down. He sighed and looked at her, "Are we doing the right thing by getting involved?"

Tammy was stunned by that question and she understood why he was thinking that way, "Oh Jaret, you let everyone here make their own choices, that is something that many adults rarely allow us to. We all made the choice that we believe is right. I have no regrets. I think that all of us know this is what our life is destined for. Look how  
far we have come. Farther than ever thought of." replied Tammy quickly.

"I know we all made the choices, but I find myself in charge of everything here, including the protection of this crew. I can't ask them to possibly sacrifice their life for people they don't know or even existed." protested Jaret.

"Well, adults do it all the time, cops and soldiers alike, they put their lives on the line for people they don't know or yet to exist. As far as I'm concerned, we here to fight for what is right, the right of a nation to exist without being exterminated because of another who hold fear and prejudice against them." pointed out Tammy.

"Why is it that you know everything? Another thing that makes me wonder, why you aren't Captain instead of me?" asked Jaret wistfully.

"I don't think so, I may have the stuff to take as far as leading but I don't have a lot of tenacity to do it right the first time around, plus you are stubborn so that is a good quality to have as Captain, no doubt about it. Besides, I love my place here in Medic Bay. Here I am in charge and I'm given a different kind of free rein than you are. You are in charge of the ship and its crew while I'm in charge of the crew's health and a small area." grinned Tammy foolishly.

"Very funny Tammy but thanks for your reassurance. I guess I've been thinking to hard on this." Smiled Jaret thankfully.

"How long till we reach the borders of Romulan Space?" asked Tammy.

"It takes three days, but we are taking our time getting there, no need to rush and besides, we need all the preparation we can get. We haven't left Earth's orbit yet but I imagine we will soon." informed Jaret as he got up and made his way out of Tammy's office.

Jaret left the office with a smile on his face, he felt much better and made his way back to the bridge. He stopped before reaching the Turbolift and touched his combadge, "Ryan, inform the helm to set a course for the longest route to Romulan Space. I want it to take more than a few days. See if they can arrange to plot the course near Aldrea's system. I think we need to swing on by there just in case."

"Aye sir, anything else?" asked Ryan's voice through the combadge.

"Nope, that is all, I'm going to get some sleep Ryan, I've had a long day today and I sorely am in need of sleep." Replied Jaret as he started to yawn.

"I understand sir. I will see you in the morning, bright and early!" signed off Ryan.

Jaret stopped yawning and walked to the turbolift. He instructed it to take him to deck 8 where his quarters were at.

Meanwhile, Tammy watched Jaret leave and once he left her sight completely she spoke out loud for herself to hear, "You are right that we will need all the preparing we can get, and knowing this crew, and we will fight hard for this."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

That very night, Tammy was resting in her quarters reading a book, she had a cup of tea by her nightstand and she was curled up in the bed with her covers. She was about to turn the page when her nightstand console beeped. She sighed and put the book down by her side, and reached for the button on the nightstand.

"Yes, how may I help you?" asked Tammy tiredly.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your night off Tammy, but this is an emergency. We need you down in Medic Bay right away." informed the night duty nurse in an urgent tone.

"Very well, I'll be there shortly, Dr. Livingston out." acknowledged Tammy as she hurriedly got dressed and ran out the door.

Several minutes later, she entered Medic Bay only to see several of the nurses talking in a very upset tone. All the while, she wondered what has them very worried. She walked up to the crowd and wondered who the patient was. She was stunned to find a very critical injured Jaret with a knife wound on his chest. She immediately got down to business. Grabbing a tricorder from the nearest nurse, she scanned Jaret. She was dismayed to find that the wound penetrated the left lung resulting in a collapsed lung but the wound narrowly missed his heart all together. Another thing that worried her was all the bleeding going on in his chest. She double-checked to make sure there were no scratches and no tears on the aorta or on the heart itself.

"Okay, let's get him into surgery now, we need to run him on some saline to keep his pressure up and get him on oxygen too, his levels are compromised. Let's get that lung repaired. Let's move it people!" ordered Tammy as she whirled around and headed to her office to contact the bridge in private.

The room of nurses fluttered to action on Tammy's orders and started to prep him and themselves for surgery. Some of the nurses fled to the operating room to prep the operating room for the surgery with the required tools to help their captain. Tammy saw a select few of them prepping themselves by getting into their gowns. One of the nurses stayed behind was waiting for Tammy so she can help her get into her gown. The rest of the group wheeled Jaret into the operating room. Tammy was pleased to see the group working together very well. She had selected the best people for the right jobs.

As soon as she reached her office, Tammy touched her combadge, "Medic Bay to Bridge."

"Yes, this is the bridge, Lt. Mark Allaway speaking."

"I want you to wake Lt. Dyck and Commander Livingston up. We have a situation here. The Captain has been seriously injured and is currently being wheeled into the operating room. He was attacked with a knife. May I suggest that someone head to his quarters and see if they can find any forensic evidence of the attacker? I'm on my way to repair the captain's lung." informed Tammy hurriedly.

"Aye ma'am, good luck" responded Lt. Allaway.

She flung off her robe onto the chair before stepping out of the office. Tammy muttered to herself and was helped into her gown by the remaining nurse and headed into the operating room. It was going to be another long night for her. Since finding the Galaxy, she have been very busy proving to herself and others that she chose the right position as a CMO. It's not fun, but it is challenging and it requires her to be on call 24/7.

Meanwhile, Ryan was peacefully asleep when he was woken up by an urgent call from the bridge. Ryan mumbled something along the lines that he was not on duty and why would they even consider waking him up in the middle of the night! He did his shift and wanted to catch up on some needed sleep.

"Yes, this is Ryan. Who is calling me at this time of the night?!" asked Ryan who glared at his nightstand console.

"Sir, my apologies. I was just informed by Dr. Livingston that Capt. Pieper is being rushed into emergency surgery due to him being attacked in his quarters I believe. I didn't get all the details from her as she was in a hurry." Informed the voice through the comnlink.

"Okay, is David awake?" asked Ryan as he suddenly woke up upon hearing that Jaret was attacked in his own quarters. It was not a good thing, especially since Jaret's room is on the same deck as his as well on Tammy's deck.

"Yes sir, and David is on its way with a security team. You will no doubt run into him when you leave your room." Signed off the officer.

"Great, just great, why does things happen to me? I'm always stuck in command when something like this happen to Jaret." muttered Ryan as he finished getting dressed and made his way out of the door. He ran into it because he forgot that prior to going to bed last night, he locked the door. A string of curses escaped his mouth as his left hand fumbled with the buttons on the side of the door to unlock it. Then the door swished open to reveal David on the other side with a wince on his face. Ryan glared at him as he rubbed his nose and shook his head and stormed towards the nearest turbolift to head to the bridge.

David watched him go his way and looked ahead of himself for his team was already assembled and standing outside the captain's quarters with their phasers. They were waiting for David to arrive.

At the Bridge, Ryan was busy pacing the floor. He hated waiting and of course, in the span of 2 days, he was back to his habit. This job is creating more difficulty then he thought and he couldn't understand who would harm Jaret. He hated be anxious once again and before he could do some more pacing, he looked at Lt. Allaway.

"I want you to head to Medic Bay, talk to the remaining nurses to get some answers. I'll look in the internal sensors to see if I can find anything." Ordered Ryan as he made up his mind to do something rather than waiting.

Lt. Allaway nodded and left the bridge only to stop because Lisa showed up in the turbolift with a very worried look. He was wondering how Lisa knew to be here but it wasn't his job to worry about that. He had his orders, so he step aside to let Lisa on the bridge and he stepped inside the turbolift. Once the door closed, Lisa looked around and saw that Ryan was at David's station looking through the sensors logs to see if anything made any sense.

"Have you heard anything?" asked a worried Lisa.

Upon hearing Lisa's voice, Ryan shook his head no and went back to work tiredly. Lisa walked to him and put her hands on his shoulders, "Is there anything I can do to help?", asked Lisa.

Ryan looked up at Lisa and nodded, "Would you please go over this sensors logs while I go over the computer records that it recorded by the medical sensors. I need to know how bad it is."

"Who would do this?" whispered Lisa softly as she took over looking the sensors logs from Ryan. Ryan went to another station and sat down to read the medical logs.

"I don't know I don't understand myself. I have never even considered an attack on one of us by someone on board this ship. I sure hope David comes back. I need some news, good or bad. I can't stand waiting like this." muttered Ryan angrily.

An half an hour passed, and David finally arrived on the bridge. He found Ryan and Lisa sitting down. They noticed that his face was masked with a fierce grimace. Ryan saw the look and his shoulders sagged in the chair. Lisa put her hand on his shoulders, trying to soothe him.

"I've looked over every square inch of the Captain's quarters and we couldn't find anything. No shred of evidence of our attacker or of the weapon used. But based on what the nurses who was on duty when Jaret first arrived at Medic Bay, she said that Jaret was conscious and told her that he was attacked by a knife and it happened in his quarters. He managed to get that much information out before he collapsed. I'm sorry, I wish I had better news but that is all we have to go on until Jaret wakes up and tells us who attacked him. I hate the thought that someone on board this ship went as far at to attack him and even as far to kill him if that is their intent." informed David tiredly.

Ryan motioned for David and Lisa to follow him into the Ready Room and left Lt. Allaway again in charge of the bridge. Once inside, Ryan sat down in front of the desk and nodded to David and Lisa to take their seats. The two of them thankfully sat down. Lisa sat down on the chair nearest to Ryan while David too the couch and heaved himself on it. His shoulders sagged as he slouched. He rubbed his eyes tiredly before he spoke, "What's up Ryan, why did you drag us here?" query David.

"Just didn't want the night shift duty officers to overhear us. Lisa, what is the potential of a Romulan spy on board here?" asked Ryan bluntly.

"Excuse me? You think this attack was by a double agent and one that was working with the Romulan Empire? Who could it be? I mean, beside me, I'm the only one not from Earth originally. Who would wantonly volunteer to be a spy for the Romulans?" replied Lisa shocked.

David was very shocked at that question and he perked up a bit. His shoulders protesting as he sat up and looked to Ryan for an answer, "Why would you ask that?"

"I'm trying to look at this at all possible angles and not blindly rule anything out." pointed out Ryan tiredly.

"I guess it could be possible but then again it all boils down to Jaret telling us who the attacker was. I wish we knew how the surgery is going." sighed Lisa sadly.

"I know, so do I, but we don't have much choice, we have to wait." Replied Ryan as he stifled another act of yawning.

Suddenly the door beeped to let them know that someone was requesting permission to enter the room.

"Enter." allowed Ryan as he leaned back in the chair and rubbed his tired eyes.

The door opened and entered a tired but relieved Tammy. She had shadows under her eyes as a sign of exhaustion.

"Tammy? How's Jaret?" asked David hopefully as he moved over to make room on the couch and offered the space to her.

"He's fine, but he will need some time to recover from his attack. Any news on the forensic part?" asked Tammy as she rejected David's offer of sitting down. She knew if she sat down she'll fall asleep in an instant. It was only one thirty in the morning and yet it feels as if she's been up for over 24 hours.

"I'm sorry doc but nothing showed up. We searched high and low but we got nothing. We will just have to wait for Jaret to wake up and tell us what happened. How long do you estimate before we can talk to him?" informed David? Tammy groaned out loud and looked at Ryan with a pleading look on her face.

"I'm sorry Tammy, but David's right, Jaret is all we have to go on. How long?" admitted Ryan.

"I would recommend a full day but knowing how limited we are on this, I will see if he wakes up by this afternoon on his own at the latest. If he doesn't wake up by then, I'll have to risk it by waking him up one way or the other. What he really needs is rest, this was a horrible but traumatic attack. It's not a good idea to push his body to its limit and it might make it worse. I know you're right David but my concern is for my patient first. I understand that might raise some conflict but for now, I'll work with you regarding your investigation." sighed Tammy.

"Okay, now that's settled, I'm heading back to bed for some sleep; I may suggest the same for the rest of you. David, you have battle drills in the morning, get some rest, that's an order. Lisa and Tammy, go to bed. I'll see you all later in good time." yawned Ryan weakly as he got up from the table and started his way on walking out.

David, Tammy and Lisa soon followed suit and exited the room and went their way back to their quarters. Lt. Allaway nodding to each of them as they made their way to the turbolift for some much needed sleep. It would be a long wait but long it will be.

The very same day, it was noon when Tammy could finally wake Jaret up. He never woke up on his own, so she had to wake him up. At the same time, she didn't want to risk his heath for this but knew that David and Ryan were waiting for some answers. Time was of the essence. Once she injected some drug to wake him up, she waited and watched his life signs on the monitor above the bed on the wall. Once Jaret opened his eyes, the others could noticed that he looked pretty pale and groggy looking. David and Ryan were standing next to both sides of the bed and waited patiently.

Jaret looked around in half sleepy closed eyes and noticed three blurry figures standing next to his bed. Once he rubbed his eyes to wake him further up he noticed three pairs of worried faces. When he put his hands down, he winced in pain as he tried to remember what the last thing he did was. It took awhile but then he recalled the attack very clearly. He looked down and touched his chest and tried to sit up. Before Jaret could sit up, Tammy rushed to him so she can prevent him from sitting up and spoke softly, "Easy now, you just had major surgery to repair that punctured lung. You are okay but you need to take it easy. Are you in the mood to talk to David and Ryan?"

Jaret looked up and asked Tammy, "Am I going to live?"

Tammy laughed lightly, "Yes you are, for a long time barring anymore attempts on your life."

Tammy stood back and let David approach Jaret while Ryan was on the other side with a worried look on his face. He looked at his sister just to be sure that things were going to be okay.

"He'll be fine, just don't keep him up. I'll be in my office and if you guys need anything, holler." Tammy smiled weakly as she knew she couldn't reassure Ryan just yet. It was too soon to tell.

"Jaret, I know you feel tired but we need to know some things." interrupted David as he looked across the bed to Ryan's face. He nodded and paid his attention back to Jaret.

Jaret leaned back in his bed and took a deep breath and started slowly to recall what has happened to him.

The next day arrived. David was doing some hand to hand combat with his officers on the holodeck. This was to be a training exercise as the program intended it to be, but everyone on board needs this experience due to the fact that soon, they will face up to the Romulan and they don't know how they fight.

David threw his opponent down on the mat and the guy winced in pain. He sighed, "I'm sorry Duncan. I have a bit of too much on my mind."

Duncan rubbed his arms before he extended his hands up to David, "What's up sir?"

David took Duncan's hands and helped him off the floor, "Nothing or everything I suppose. It goes with being a senior officer.

"I see sir. Shall I continue this exercises with someone else?" asked Duncan.

"No, head to Medic Bay to get that shoulder of yours looked at. If Dr. Livingston asks why, send her in my direction. I know I've been a bit rough on all of you as of lately." Apologized David to the room full of officers. They all looked at him with a deep concern and a deep understanding of him. They all knew what they were getting themselves into.

"Okay, everyone, head to your quarters and to your shifts." Ordered a voice from behind David.

David turned around and saw Ryan leaning on the wall grinning at him.

"Ryan, what brings you down here?" asked a surprised David as he grabbed his towel off the bench and watched the group of officers leave the holodeck. He joined Ryan and turned around, "Computer, save and end program."

The computer chirped in reply. The room full of exercise equipment disappeared to a room that was empty and dark with some light. David turned back to Ryan and waited for him to answer him back. Once they exited the holodeck, as the door closed by him Ryan finally spoke, "I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone, the last thing I want to do is disobey Jaret's orders."

David turned to him, "I don't like this idea of his in the first place Ryan, and I wish Jaret would trust my people and me to do the job right in the first place. I don't want him in any more harms way then now."

"I know, but he is the captain and he does have a reason for it." Ryan grinned foolishly.

"Well, he doesn't have to pull rank with us! I hate when he does that." David bristled in frustration.

"I know you don't like it but it is out of our hands. We were ordered to stay away from him and from the situation till the time came. We know he has issues to take care of and I don't blame him one bit, but look at it this way David, if it was you or me that was injured like that and we know who our attacker is, would you rather take care of it yourself or allow someone else to do it?" asked Ryan as he stepped in front of David in the hallway.

David refused to look at Ryan but he just stood there, thinking about Ryan's question. After several minutes went by, Ryan was waiting patiently for David's reply. David looked up and said, "Okay, you have a point. I hate when you do that!"

Ryan smiled at him once more, "I'm sorry David, really I am but even I don't like this as well you do, but for the moment, I trust Jaret. I don't have much of a choice."

"Ryan, David!" called out a voice.

Ryan and David turned their attention to the voice that called their names out only to find Tressa heading her way. One look at her made them concerned with what she has to say next, "Tressa, what do we owe the pleasure of your company?" smiled Ryan.

"Nice try Ryan, but I have something I should bring up to you. You do know there are rumors going on that Jaret is dead and I have talked to some of the crew who are expressing doubts about weather the mission should continue." Tressa informed them.

"I think we need to address this with Jaret right now Ryan. Lets head to Medic Bay shall we?" admitted David with a sigh.

"Okay, let's get going. I hate going there." Ryan loudly grumbled as he motioned for Tressa and David to go ahead.

"You just don't like going to Medic Bay because your sister is there and she really doesn't like Jaret's idea at all." David snickered as he led the way to the nearest turbolift.

"Shut up." Ryan growled.

It was several minutes later when Tammy was fussing over Jaret on the bio bed that she heard Ryan, David, and Tressa walk in. She turned to them, "What do you want now!?"

"Tammy!" chastises Tressa.

"I'm sorry, but Jaret is being one very testy patient here and I'm on my last nerves with him." Tammy apologized as she stormed to her office.

David looked at Tressa with a look of pity on his face, "Sorry Tressa, I think you have the hardest job today out of all of us."

"Well, I guess I have to earn my keep somehow. You two talk to him about what I've told you and plan this accordingly. I'm going to go and try my best to calm Tammy down. Tell Jaret to take it easy on her, she was really worried about him yesterday, all of us were." Tressa nodded so she stepped aside and followed Tammy who was in her office fuming mad.

Ryan walked up to Jaret's bed and pulled up a chair for him and David, "We need to talk Jaret. There are already rumors that you're dead and some of the crew is expressing concerns about the mission."

David sat down once he saw that Tressa made it to Tammy's office with no worse for wear, "What do you want us to do?"

Jaret looked at them and sighed, "Announce to everyone that I'm dead and that the mission will go on as planned. You will take the rank of captain at my last request. Say whatever you can to make sure that my attacker believes there is no evidence that was found that would lead to an arrest of any kind."

"That makes sense; lull the person down, which really is going to suck later." David agreed as he shook his head. His hand went to rub his forehead as he tried to think of anything else he should bring up.

"Do it now Ryan. You two, go to the bridge. I'll get Tammy to input into the computer my fake "Death" certificate to back up your announcement." Jaret suggested.

"Okay, David, head back to your quarters, and meet me on the bridge. I'm going to grab Tressa. We might as well make this as "formal" as possible. Typically the Captain is supposed to do the ceremony but I think I'll grab Tressa instead. Make a big show of this right?" Ryan agreed.

"Good, that will get the ball rolling." Jaret nodded in understanding.

David shook his head and was muttering something under his breath when he got up from his chair and walked out of Medic Bay. Tressa and Tammy finally came out of the office.

"I figure you would plan something like this. I've already had a fake "Death" certificate ready just in case. Do you want me to finalize it now?" asked Tammy.

"Do it, and Tressa, go with Ryan, but before you, you have to get something." Jaret spoke softly as he reached over to his night table's drawer and pulled it open. Once he got what he need he turned back to Tressa and handed her a small black box, "This would make it very convincingly to everyone."

Tressa stepped forward and took the small box from him and followed Ryan out of Medic Bay. Tammy then stepped forward and punched in a few commands on the wall console. Jaret's life signs flat lined and she spoke up to the computer, "Time of Death: 1400 hours, stardate 9103.29, and cause of death: knife would to left lung. He was unable to recover from surgery due to loss of blood and shock. Patient name is Capt. Jaret Liam Pieper."

"Entry noted, any further information required?"

"Not at this time. Jaret, I hope you know what you're doing on this. I'm going to beam you back to your quarters and have it sealed. You can't be caught walking around the ship if you're dead." Tammy pointed out.

"I understand Tammy. Thanks for your help though, and I'm sorry if I've been giving you a rough time. It's just been hard enough for me to deal with the fact that I was attacked and well, left to die." Jaret said with some concern in his voice.

"Jaret, you need to talk to Tressa later, when you have time. I know it's not possible at the moment but you know she is worried about your mental and emotional health. You're fine physically but other than that…you need to get your feelings out before it drives you insane." Tammy pointed out to Jaret as she walked over to another console and waved her hand on it.

Before Jaret could reply to her, the whirling sound of the transporter activated and beamed Jaret back to his room. His mouth was seen to open but no sound came out. Tammy smiled, "Okay, let's get this going. Medic Bay to Bridge."

Back on the Bridge, Lisa was in command, "Bridge here, Tammy what is it?"

"I regret to inform you that Capt. Jaret Pieper has died. He didn't recover from his injuries or from the surgery. We tried our best. Ryan and David have been informed of it and will be shortly on the bridge to make the ship wide announcement. It's officially noted in the ships records." Tammy announced through the comlink.

Lisa's face fell as she heard that news. It felt like someone kicked her in the guts. Now she knows why Ryan has been away from the Bridge since the attack. He was spending time with Jaret in the hopes he would survive. She knew what was coming next. Then she heard the turbolift doors swish open to reveal Ryan and Tressa with a somber look on their face. Lisa got up from her chair but before she could take her station Ryan gestured her to stay put. By the time he got to her side, Tressa was holding a small black box.

"Lt. Allaway, would you please open the comlink for a ship wide announcement." Asked Ryan.

The officer at the security station nodded as he punched in some buttons to open the ship wide comlink. He then nodded again to inform Ryan that it was open and ready.

"Attention crew of the Galaxy. It is with a great sorrow that I am to announce the death of Capt. Jaret Pieper. He passed away today at 1400 hours at the result of his injuries and was unable to recover enough to survive. I know that this will come to a great shock to you all, but we will keep going on. This is what we came out to do, despite the risks it presents to us all. As of today, I hereby take the rank of Captain and Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Crusher is hereby promoted to the rank of Commander. Lt. David Dyck is promoted to Lieutenant Commander." Ryan announced as he struggled to keep his stoic mask on his face intact.

Tressa stepped forward, and opened the box; there were the two solid circles that will replace Ryan's half circles to indicate a change of rank. She took his old ones off his uniform and placed the new ones. She looked up at him, "Captain Ryan Livingston, do you promise to uphold the honor of your new rank?"

Ryan winced at that question as he hated being so formal in front of everyone, "Yes I do."

Tressa stepped back and took her seat next to the Captain's chair. Ryan turned around and nodded to Lt. Allaway to shut down the ship wide comlink. His shoulders sagged as he sat down in the chair. He grimaced inwardly because he knew he was really in a rough place now.

"I'm sorry Ryan, this is not easy but I'm sure with that announcement, we will continue to forge ahead. I'm sure the rest of the crew will agree to it." Lisa spoke sadly.

Ryan looked at her and sighed again. It was going to be yet another long day. How long will this farce last?


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Two days ago, Jaret was attacked and was near death. Now here he was getting ready to confront who had attacked him. It took some convincing on his part to let him handle it and David and Ryan both protested it but they knew that he outranked them and in the back of their heads, they knew that Jaret had to deal with this on his own. It was a matter of honor. He had no intention of letting his attacker get away with this crime; he had to for the safety of the mission. He finished dressing and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked tired and worn out but he sighed and left the bathroom. He walked across his bedroom and entered the living room. On the coffee table was a phaser. He grabbed that and calmly strode to his desk. He turned on his monitor and typed in a few commands. Located his attacker and pre-programmed the transporters to beam him to the location.

Meanwhile, in Main Engineering John was working with a fellow officer. He sighed, what a day he thought to himself. It was getting tougher for him but he was having a hard time dealing with the announcement that happened yesterday. He shook his head to try to clear his thought so he turned to his aide, Ensign Twyla Mosely.

"Do you have the data yet?" asked a tired John.

"Aye sir, sorry to say it but there are no definite changes. What is next to do on our list?" responded Twyla as she handed John the data padd to him.

"Nothing much, but I can do it by myself. Thanks for all the overtime you've been putting in. It's nice to meet someone on this ship besides me that is interested in the mechanical aspects of duty." John replied as he looked at the data padd.

"Alright then sir, shall I be dismissed if there is nothing required of me?" asked Twyla.

"Oh, yes, you are dismissed. Have a good day." muttered John as he waved Twyla away.

Twyla smiled as she turned around but suddenly stopped, she came face to face with a determined but supposed to be dead Capt. Jaret Pieper who was holding a phaser in his hand which was pointing in her direction.

"I believe we have something to discuss about Ensign Mosely?" challenged Jaret smoothly.

"Jaret, what are you doing here? How can you be here? I thought…" shouted John in shock as he heard what was going on behind him.

"Captain, believe me I have no idea what you are referring to?" denied Twyla quickly.

"Well, for starters, you tried to kill me a day or two ago? Maybe you remember that particular event? I mean, it's not that hard to forget?" growled Jaret madly.

"Jaret, you can't be thinking that she's the one who tried to kill you? What's really going on here?" exclaimed John with wide eyes.

"I don't forget a face who tries to kill me. Particularly if the person was holding a knife and plunged it into my chest. That is something you don't forget that easily. Come on Ensign Mosely, lets take a walk to the brig shall we?" asked Jaret politely.

Twyla looked at Jaret and then to John, she was starting to panic and then started to back up, her left hand going behind her back. To Jaret, she looked like she was ready to spring and run. He was poised for anything, his thumb rested lightly on the trigger button of the phaser.

"Twyla, please tell me that you had nothing to do with the attack on Jaret?" pleaded John for answers loudly.

Twyla didn't look at John to respond to his question, and she was ready, she slightly turned to her side but didn't get a chance to go for the run she was planning on. Jaret decided to fire his phaser and stunned her. She fell down to the ground softly and quickly. Jaret heaved a sigh and looked a John who was very disappointed. "I'm very sorry John, I know how you liked her and all, but the fact remains, she is a spy and she did try to kill me. She was almost effective at it but we will know more when she wakes up." Jaret apologized to John with a look of sadness on his face.

John shook his head and looked at Jaret and sighed, "If I knew, I would have dragged her to the brig. I wish we had known about this before hand, that the Romulans might've done something like this? I'm glad you're not dead Jaret; the entire crew was upset by this. Do you realize that now everyone is going to be mad at you or mad at her when they find out that all of this announcement yesterday was a plan to arrest her?"

"We thought we were prepared, but apparently the Romulans had the upper hand in this case. I know that everyone will be surprised, but I had to limit the amount of people that knew about this to prevent any possible leakage of my plans. I wanted to face her by myself. I think I wanted answers but I don't know if she will give it to me." Muttered Jaret sadly.

"Jaret, she might give you something but it won't be what you want to hear." John replied as he gestured for the security team that came down to come forward.

By then, a group of security guard came and the Jaret motioned towards the still form of Ensign Mosely, "Take her to the brig and notify Medic Bay that we have an injured prisoner, and to let me know when she wakes up!"

One of the guards who knelt down by Twyla looked up at the Captain and nodded his affirmation. The other two guards came by and helped the first one to pick up Twyla and carried her gently to the brig.

Jaret turned around and left Main Engineering, leaving John to deal with his emotions. By the time Jaret turned the corridor to head his way back to the bridge, he stopped in mid stride. He sighed sadly and leaned against the wall, and his hands to shake slightly.  
He was deeply disappointed in her, and that one had joined with the purpose of preventing this ship to reach Romulan Space.

It was the next day that Jaret was in his quarters, eating his lunch in private and reading up on some reports that he had to catch up on. He sighed in frustration over the amount of stuff he had to play catch up on for playing dead for 2 days.

"Bridge to Captain Pieper." interrupted the comlink.

Jaret's hand touched his combadge and he spoke softly, "Yes?"

"We are nearing the planet Aldrea, shall we assume standard orbit?" informed Ryan.

"Great, drop out of warp and inform Lisa that we are entering Aldrea's systems. We owe Lisa that courtesy to check up on any remaining survivors there and to observe the damages for future repairs. I will be on the bridge momentarily." ordered Jaret.

"Aye sir." acknowledged Ryan as he signed off.

Jaret stood up and turned off his monitor and left his meal on the desk. He walked to the door to leave and headed his way towards the turbolift.

Back on the Bridge, Ryan was sitting in the Captain's chair and was issuing orders.  
"Take the ship into standard orbit around Aldrea. Scan for any signs of Romulans vessels?"

Ryan felt much better being back in his former rank, playing captain was not easy and he didn't like it one bit. He knew that he's not quite ready yet for that rank privilege.

"No sir, sensors reports zero ship in the vicinity. Sensors do show massive damage to the main city and little damage on the out skirts of the city. We do have life signs, they are human, but we don't know if they require medical help?" reported Lisa.

"Okay, David, put together a security team with Lisa and please informs Tammy to put together a medical team as well. We must do this quickly as we do not want to delay our meeting with the Romulans any longer. Show me on the viewer the damages?" suggested Ryan quickly.

Lisa nodded and type a few commands in her console, and the main viewer showed the main city which was smoldering smoke in the air. There was evidence of an attack from above the city. There were small fires still burning but nothing too dangerous.

Lisa stood up and took her leave of station to join David in the turbolift, the door opened to reveal Jaret in it.

"Sir, we are going down to the surface to check up on the survivors and see if they need medical aid. We will be quick and won't stay too long." informed Ryan as he saw Lisa step aside to let Jaret through and as soon as Jaret stepped off the turbolift, David and  
Lisa stepped in and the door closed quickly.

Jaret turned to see the main viewer and inhaled sharply, he cursed a blue streak in his head as he couldn't believe how much damage the Romulans have done to the city. He called them cowards for attacking from the ship instead of attacking on the surface. It was the same callous tactic as back on Earth. The Aldreans were definitely caught off guard. He turned around and sat down in his chair.

Ryan noticed Jaret's immediate reaction to the scene on the main viewer. He felt the same way but he also knew that if they don't get back from their meeting with the Romulans, who would help them? He pushed that doubt in the back of his mind and continued to concentrate on his work.

Down on the surface of Aldrea, Lisa got her first shock at seeing how badly the city was damaged in the attack. She wanted to scream and cry but couldn't, not in front of her fellow officers. Trying her best to remain stoic, she turned to David, "Let's split up into teams, keep an eye out for anything. I don't know how upset my people are and they might not know that you're here to help them."

"Agree, you three go in that direction, you three in that direction, I and Lt. Cmdr. Crusher will go this way. Keep your phasers on stun, when we have cleared the area of any intruders, contact the medical personnel, and tell them to beam down at your coordinates. Understand?" ordered David to the security officers. They were all armed with hand phasers and tricorders.

The team split up and left on their assigned tasks. Lisa and David took to their direction north of the city and kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

"I know this is hard on you Lisa, if I was in your shoes, I would be worried big time over my loved ones." consoled David.

"Thank you David and I know what you mean, but right now I have a job to do, I'll do the worrying later." thanked Lisa.

"Okay, I'm picking up life signs up ahead, they're stationary but I don't know if they're hurt or not. You know what? I'm also picking up traces of Romulan DNA but there are none here." informed David.

"Yeah, I've noticed that too. I wouldn't be surprised if they took their dead and wounded back to the ships. I can't see them leaving them here." admitted Lisa.

They soon reached the signal of the life signs, Lisa recognized one of the people in that group, and it was her Mother!

"Mom?" queried Lisa haltingly.

"Lisa, you're okay, where have you've been? I've been worried sick about you! I didn't know if you were captured or killed or injured?" scolded Sherilyn.

"Ma'am, are all the Romulans gone?" asked David who interrupted Lisa before she could answer her mom.

Sherilyn eyed David with great scrutiny and finally noticed the uniform he was wearing, deciding then he was worth the trust to talk to him.

"Mother!" hedged Lisa urgently.

"I'm sorry, I am Dr. Sherilyn Crusher, and you are?" replied Sherilyn stiffly.

"I'm Lt. David Dyck, of the USS Galaxy." introduced David as he held out his hand to shake Sherilyn's hand..

"The Galaxy?" echoed Sherilyn in shock as she shook his hand in return.

"Mom, David is from Earth, they found the Galaxy and they brought it here! That's where I've been the last 10 days." explained Lisa.

"Oh my goodness, and to answer your question sir, no there are no Romulans here, they've all left. They didn't stay very long, or go to the effort of finding all of us." answered Sherilyn.

"Okay, hang on for a minute." asked David as he stepped away from Lisa and her mother, "David to Galaxy."

"Jaret here, what's the news?" asked the voice that belonged to Jaret via the combadge.

"There are no Romulans here, they didn't stay long according to Dr. Crusher, they just grabbed who they can and left, presumably after Lisa's abrupt departure and chased after her. We have a few wounded down here, but on the bright side, it is safe to send the medical personnel here. I'll stay with Lisa and with her mother; it would be advisable to get some more information on what we might have to deal with? Has our traitor woken up yet?" reported David.

"I just signaled the transporter room to start beaming the medical personnel down, Tammy will join you momentarily. As for finding out more about the situation, you have my permission. No, Ensign Mosely has not awaken yet, and it will be some time before she does." chastised Jaret to David.

"Aye sir, Lt. Dyck signing out." sighed David grumpily.

He turned around and just about jumped out of his skin, Tammy was already there and was busily chatting away with Lisa's mother and helping the wounded. Lisa joined David after she had noticed that he was no longer busy.

"I've found out some things from mother." started Lisa sadly.

"Bad news I presume?" queried David quietly.

"Yeah, do you recall the former Captain of the Galaxy?" asked Lisa.

David turned to face Lisa, his face in concentration as he tried to recall the name of the former Captain of the USS Galaxy, "Was it Captain James?"

"You are correct David, he was taken by the Romulans along with several of the original command crew of the Galaxy. That was the first thing the Romulans did when they transported down here." explained Lisa.

"Jaret knows that James is onboard that ship but I don't know if he's aware if the rest of the senior staffs are there too. They might be kept in separate rooms to prevent that knowledge from coming to realization. That makes it sounds like it was pre-planned before hand. Why would they want the senior's officers anyway?" wondered David out loud.

"My guess, they want custody of the Galaxy or something is on board there that they want?" suggested Lisa offhand.

"Good point, and you know what, with that Twyla person in custody, perhaps she will shed some light on Tomahawk's plan." agreed David.

"I hope so for all of our sake, I'm more concerned that she may have planted something." thought Lisa.

"We better have John check things out before we head out of Aldrea's orbit. I'm heading back up to the ship and report to Jaret and John. They are not going to be happy about this." sighed David as he started to walk away from Lisa and headed towards their original beam down coordinates.

Lisa nodded in understanding and walked towards her mother and Tammy. The two of them were in deep discussion and were busy attending the wounded at the same time.

"I'm impressed that you've managed to learn so much in such a short time. Thank you for lending us some medical supplies, it's badly needed as we never expected something of this sort to ever happen." thanked Sherilyn.

"Not a problem, I'm glad we could offer help of any sort. We will be leaving to meet up with the Romulans anyway, to get the rest of your people back." Stated Tammy proudly.

"Mom, we won't be in orbit for a long time, is there anything else you need?" asked Lisa.

"You're going with them?" asked Sherilyn who went into worried mode for her daughter.

"I have to do this mom, this is far important for me not to go. I'm sort of a guide to these people as they are new to this whole thing despite learning so much in such a short time, they need me." replied Lisa adamantly.

"Oh alright, I can't really stop you can't I? We might need a few supplies, nothing major, some basic survival supplies. We need blankets, lights and anything to help us get through the next several days. We need a way to construct temporary shelter till you  
guys get back." replied Sherilyn.

"Okay, I'll go and arrange for the supplies, Tammy, get your group and any wounded here, it's better to be here as it is near the river and would help with the temporary shelter. I'll be back later to supervise the transfer." recommended Lisa.

"That will be fine, I'll notify my teams." Tammy nodded as she turned back her attention to her tricorder.

Lisa nodded and left Tammy and her mother. Soon she was out of sight and Tammy and Sherilyn continued to treat the wounded.

"You are doing a very brave thing, despite your age. I know I'm worried for my daughter and it's a natural thing to do so. It must have been a hard choice to make, especially for one so young?" murmured Sherilyn.

Tammy stopped looking at her tricorder and looked up and looked at Sherilyn for a minute before replying, "It wasn't a hard choice to make. We all knew in our hearts what we should do. I think this was fated long ago, since the day your ship crashed onto our planet. My parents had a hard time with our choice. They argued, they begged and pleaded for us to stay. I think in the end, they knew that they taught us well. Its not often that people our age get the chance to make this sort of choice. Its just goes to show all of us, we're not limited as we think we are, age or not."

"Thank you so much for reminding me of that. I am proud of Lisa, and I suppose it is just me not thinking right. I never thought Lisa would be into this sort of thing, being an officer. I guess, its in her blood." Sherilyn smiled as she went back to treating her wounded people before her.

"Its more than that Sherilyn, it's in her soul. I know it is. Since we found the ship, I've felt more at home in space than I ever did on Earth." Tammy corrected. She looked up and saw that more of the security teams and medical teams were bringing in more wounded. She sighed, time to get back to work. She rolled her eyes. It's been 10 days since this whole adventure started, and there is still more to come.

Back on the Galaxy, David was busy informing Jaret and John with what he had heard and what Lisa has told him regarding Twyla.

"John, I want you to quickly check everything just in case we might have sabotage. David schedule some more drills, I want to be prepared for anything. Lisa is coming back onboard to deliver supplies to the remaining Aldreans. She will watch the transfer and help them before we leave orbit. John, you have one day to check everything as I don't want to delay any longer with our meeting with the Romulans." commanded Jaret sternly.

"Is that what you want, you got it." agreed John as he left Jaret and David.

"I guess I better see who's on duty and adjust the duty roster for our drills. See you later Jaret." sighed David as he too left.

Jaret leaned back in his chair and looked out the window of his ready room, he was concerned over what he heard. He wondered what other surprises Tomahawk has in store for them? He sighed noisily and leaned forward and touch the buttons on his computer, he called up the crew file of Twyla Mosely. He wanted to see her application and wanted to find out a hint as to what she is planning. David had already gone through Twyla's quarters and found nothing on her personal computer, no journal and no evidence of her  
betrayal. He re-read her application over and over, hoping that something would come to him. Then suddenly his combadge beeped. He touched it and responded, "Jaret here."

"Sir, you told us to let you know when Ensign Mosely is awake?" reported the officer.

"I'll be down there shortly." quickly replied Jaret as he shut the computer off and rushed out of the room. Once he was on the Bridge, he looked to Ryan and nodded and motioned for Tressa to follow him. Tressa got up from her seat next to Ryan and went behind Jaret as he strode up to the turbolifts door. The door opened up to reveal Lisa.

"Lisa are you done on the surface?" asked Jaret curtly.

"Not quite yet sir, I'm here to let you know that the remaining survivors are all treated and resting comfortably. I was just coming on board to get permission to remain down on the surface with our teams to help construct some shelters but in order to do that, I need some supplies from the cargo bays?" asked Lisa.

"I see. After you are done or able to leave the rest of the team to their task, then I want you to assist Lt. Paul, he's checking for possible signs of sabotage and since you know this ship better than us. I want to get out of orbit tomorrow and I want this check completed by then." Advised Jaret.

"Of course sir." agreed Lisa as she stepped aside to let Jaret and Tressa to step inside the turbo lift. Once the door closed, Ryan looked at David and shrugged his shoulders.

"He's always leaving me in charge; there hasn't been a moment that he takes the bridge longer than an hour!" Ryan huffed.

"Look at it this way, you're gaining practical experience now!" laughed Lisa as she walked towards Ryan who was sitting in the chair with a disgruntled look on his face.

Several minutes later, Lisa ran into Jaret and Tressa in the turbolift as they were heading their way to the brig and she was on her way to the cargo bay on the same level.

Inside the turbo lift, Jaret was talking to Lisa about what happened on the surface.

"So your mom is okay with you being onboard here?" asked Jaret with concern.

"Sort of, she didn't want me to risk my life any more than I have to but I told her that it was my choice and that I'm old enough to do what I want. After all, she taught me to follow my heart and that's what I'm doing." stated Lisa firmly.

"Parents in general want to do everything they can to protect their offspring, it's only natural that she would feel this way. Actually, since before we left, I had several crew members come up to me about their own problems to their parents' reaction to this  
situation. Some had to leave on bad terms and others left on more amicable terms." murmured Tressa softly.

"I had that problem, my own mom threatened to disown me if I joined up. My father was oddly enough, quiet. I left my home with my mother screaming in the background. I knew what I had to do and I wasn't going to back down." spoke Jaret sadly.

"My own parents were upset at first but after awhile, they were understanding but I know they were very afraid for me. I think every parent is like that now since we departed from Earth." nodded Tressa in agreement.

The turbolift suddenly reached its destination. The door swished open and Lisa stepped out first and turned around to face Jaret and Tressa, " I have no regrets coming here. None, and I have faith in all of us."

Jaret nodded to Lisa and watched her go towards the main cargo bays. He looked to Tressa and motioned for her to go ahead first. She murmured her thanks quietly and stepped out first with Jaret following her. Once they both left the turbo lift, they headed their way to the brig.

Once they arrived at the brig, two security guards were overseeing the prisoner. One of them looked up and stood up from the console.

"Captain Pieper, Dr. Livingston gave her a clean bill of health, she's fully recovering from her injuries. But she has not spoken since she woken up." reported  
Lt. Elisner.

"Very well, would you and the other officer please leave, we wish to talk to her in private, please remain outside in the hallway." understood Jaret.

"Aye sir, if you need anything, let us know." obeyed Lt. Elisner.

Tressa and Jaret both watched them leave the room. Jaret sighed again and Tressa noticed that he's been doing a lot of that lately.

Tressa looked to Jaret, "What do we do now?" Seeing that Jaret looked at her and he stopped to think for a minute before replying, "We talk and ask questions." growled Jaret as he went to get two empty chairs and placed it in front of the cell where Twyla was looking at them with disdain.

"I see, very direct." noticed Tressa and she went to join Jaret who was sitting down in the chair that was in front of Twyla's cell. She sat down and started feeling very uncomfortable about the tension in the room.

"Okay Twyla, let's start with the most obvious question. Are you working for Tomahawk?" asked Jaret bluntly as he glared back at her. His arms crossed across his chest, his left foot tapping as he waited for her answer. He was mad, and he wanted answers now, not later and he didn't feel like dancing around the subject. He sat straight and tall in his chair, trying to get the message that his body language was saying "Don't Mess with me" look.

Twyla glared back at Jaret; she leaned back on her cot up against the wall. For awhile, it looked like a staring match was going on between the two of them and then, "I'm not just working for Tomahawk, I'm working for the Romulan Empire. I was sworn in as a Romulan agent." snorted Twyla.

"So, you didn't feel any hesitation or doubt about being a double agent? None what so ever in your mind? Are you now comfortable about betraying us and our mission?" asked Tressa curiously.

"I don't call it betraying okay, I'm just following orders." retorted Twyla strongly as she got up from her cot in a fit of anger. They didn't understand her; she wanted to be a part of something, something exciting!

"Okay, fine then, what about betraying your heritage then? You are a citizen of Earth and you do realize that if we're destroyed, the citizen of Aldrea and Earth will be enslaved by the Romulan Empire?" pointed out Jaret.

"If I die here, on board the Galaxy, I'll be hailed as a loyal officer of the Romulan Empire. That's all I care about at this point." glared Twyla angrily.

"Twyla, you won't be hailed as a hero, you'll be known through history as the person who turned her back on her true people. Many people, if there are survivors will curse your name as evil. Is that is what you want as a part of your dying legacy?" asked Tressa as she watched the interaction between Jaret and Twyla.

"Okay, I don't know how I would be perceived of? I just know that I don't regret siding with Tomahawk or the Romulan Empire." Twyla simply stated.

"What about when you were attacking another human being in cold blood? Did you really want to kill a person like that?" asked Tressa softly.

Twyla was stunned by that question. She remained quiet for sometime before answering, "I was just following orders."

Jaret finally had it with her and pushed back his chair and stalked up towards the cell's force field and got right up in front of her face, "Fine, how about another question that you can answer. Did you plant any explosive onboard to sabotage our mission to the Romulan Space?" asked Jaret coldly.

"I'm not saying another word as I don't care what you want out of me, I won't betray the Romulan Empire." sneered Twyla as she crossed her arms in front of her chest indicating that their conversation is over.

Jaret sighed deeply and then looked at her, "I hate to say this Twyla, but you are in a lot of trouble with the law. This is something I can't let you slide on. I'm afraid you will have to remain her for the duration of the mission and when we get back to Earth, you will have to face the music. For that, I hope your faith in the Romulan Empire isn't misplaced. Just so you know you are a pawn just like the citizens of Aldrea are and so are we. If you change your mind about wanting to talk to us, let the guards' know." Jaret hinted as he went back to his chair and faced Tressa who was getting up from her chair with a sad but dismayed look on her face.

The two of them left the brig and allowed the guards to come back and take their post once again. Jaret could feel Twyla boring holes in his back with her eyes. He knew that she couldn't be persuaded that Tomahawk was bad news. He didn't know how she was convinced by him to be assured of her loyalty to him. He just couldn't understand her way of thinking or Tomahawk's way of thinking. He was stopped by Tressa when she placed her hand on one of his shoulders. He stopped and looked at her but part of him couldn't bear to reveal the weakness he was feeling inside, the doubts creeping in the back of his head.

"Jaret, she will come around eventually, so please don't blame yourself for this. I know that Tomahawk will reveal his true nature in time; you just have to be patient. Right now, you have the upper hand, you have her in custody and you weren't killed and for we know, Tomahawk is expecting to hear from her that you were removed." encouraged Tressa.

"I understand Tressa, so we have some planning to do once we leave Aldrea's orbit. I'm going to head to Twyla's quarters, she must have had something there. Who knows, maybe David missed it the first time around. I'll take a look and perhaps I will find  
something." nodded Jaret in understanding.

"Okay, if you need to talk? You know where to find me. You had a terrible trauma happen to you and you need to get this out in the open." offered Tressa.

"Thanks Tressa, I'll think about that." nodded Jaret in appreciation.

Tressa left Jaret and headed back down the corridor towards the turbolifts. Once she was out of Jaret's sight he turned and headed to Main Engineering to see John and Lisa's progress. It never failed him, the amount of trust he has in his people and how he cared for them all. He entered Main Engineering to hear John say something that was music to his ears.

"I'm glad we found it and no wonder why there wasn't anything to find in her quarters when David searched through it." John sighed when he was very happily content at that very moment.

"Found what" asked Jaret which ended up startling both Lisa and John out of their seats.

Lisa looked at Jaret and proudly held up a small device that he didn't recognize.

"Okay, what gives?" asked Jaret confusedly at Lisa.

"You don't know what this is? Jaret haven't you got to the engineering aspects of the notes I gave you before we left Earth?" John groaned in dismay.

"I just haven't found the time to read anything lately. In between dealing with my attack, my death, and my resurrection, sorry John." chuckled Jaret nervously.

"You got homework tonight buddy." whistled John at Jaret which caused Jaret to glare at John.

John realized that he was overstepping his rank and looked at Lisa who rescued him out of his predicament, "Okay, moving on. This little device is a long range communicator. And get this, it also records the date and time of messages received and sent." Explained Lisa.

"You mean, it recorded the orders and all?" asked Jaret.

"We've read through all the orders that have been sent and received in the last 5 days and not all of them are disturbing. When Tomahawk ordered you to be removed at all cost, Twyla did question him on what he meant. He was quite flippant about it and said just to "kill" you. She protested but was reminded of who she worked for and that might've forced her to do this. She's not all that bad Jaret, there is hope. None of the messages have anything to do with sabotage the ship in general yet. The first message talked about a possible one if the mission continued after you were removed. What do you want to do with this?" asked John warily.

"I think it's time we have the upper hand in this situation. Do you think we can sent a message supposedly from Twyla informing Tomahawk of my unfortunate demise and that she wants to inquire on her next set of orders. The more we know of what is  
going to happen, the more we can be prepared for any deceit on Tomahawk's behalf." smiled Jaret.

"That's not a bad idea. It won't be that hard to forge a message. What do you want us to say exactly when he answers back? And when do you want us to start?" agreed Lisa.

"Right away, I'm going to the bridge and I'm assuming that there is nothing suspicious onboard that could jeopardize our mission?" assumed Jaret.

"You assume correct Jaret, so far everything checks out fine. Tomorrow morning we can leave orbit and head for Romulan space." smiled John.

"Fine then, carry on. I'll see you guys' later." dismissed Jaret as he turned around and left Main Engineering.

Lisa and John looked at each other and started to work on the Captain's plans. They both know he is right and that it was time to get the upper hand here especially when going up against the Romulans.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Meanwhile, several thousands light years away and into Romulan Space, Tomahawk's ships were waiting for the arrival of the USS Galaxy. On board the main ship, Tomahawk was busy explaining his current plans to one of his superiors.

"I know you don't like this plan very much, but it took me 11 hours to convince this brat in the first place to agree to it. I'm not about to back down. It's high time we prove it to them that we are superior to them in many ways. I'm telling you that once our little double agent removes the only obstacle in our path, the ship is ours to take, and I doubt that the rest of the ship could function without their strong willed captain who might be dead at this very moment. Now, I know I haven't heard from her lately but I'm sure she is covering her tracks as I instructed." coyly smiled Tomahawk towards the person on his monitor.

The person frowned and looked at Tomahawk sternly before he spoke, "Tomahawk, please don't ever underestimate them, they escaped from us once, they can do it again you know. On top of it all, this is not the same people you're dealing with; this is a whole new culture that is different from what we know of. I think you're fooling yourself too much and I don't like it one bit. They know, obviously that you're very ambitious and I gather that that "brat" as you refer to him as knows that and will use that against you. Now, it was the suggestions of the board of Admirals that I come to witness this battle so that I know what's really going on instead of hearsay. So, be aware that my ship will be soon departing from Romulas and I will join you within the day. So don't do anything too rashly before I get there."

"Please Admiral; I know what I'm doing. After all you're the one who promoted me to Captain in the first place. Don't worry too much, you always have." berated Tomahawk.

"Very Well Tomahawk, be warned though, failure is not acceptable." signed of the aging admiral.

The screen went blank and returned to their fleet's insignia. Tomahawk smiled at the screen and wondered what was taking his spy so long to contact him. The door beeped and Tomahawk snapped to attention, and barked, " Enter!"

The door swished opened and in enters a young romulan officer; he bowed first and then stepped forward with the data padd and handed it to Tomahawk and stood quietly awaiting any orders. Tomahawk looked at the padd and smiled. Perfect timing he grinned. It was from her, the double agent on board the Galaxy. He looked up to the young officer, "You're dismissed; I will call you in back with a reply to this message after I figure out what will come next."

The young officer bowed once more and turned to leave the room. Tomahawk watched as he left and re read the message again. Carefully going over the details of the message a plan was soon formulating in his mind. His one annoying obstacle was that captain Pieper was dead but another situation still loomed. He had hoped that they would give up upon hearing the devastation of Jaret's death but it was not to be. Apparently, the captain left orders for his first officer to assume the rank and continue onwards despite it all.

Tomahawk leaned back and thought to himself very quietly. He looked down and turned his computer on and started to type out a message. He had a very devious plan and wanted it to be carried out as quickly as possible. Time was of the essence and he didn't know how long it will be before the Galaxy or the Admiral arrives here. He knew better to not mention to the Admiral what he had originally planned. He knew he was going to get what he wanted all along and humiliate the crew of the Galaxy at the same time. It was too bad that it would require him to sacrifice the double agent but it was necessary. Having a person as a double agent will prove problems in the future and double agents are not as trusted as they themselves believe. He quite liked her spunk, but she was very young and very naive and trusted him too easily. That was what he wanted out of her. He also set aside some orders to deal with her when the time comes. Tomahawk smiled, he knew that everything he had wanted will soon be in his grasp. He will show the Admirals what power he has and they will side with him. He knew that he couldn't possibly fail now, for he was way ahead of everyone.

The very next day, the Galaxy had already left Aldrea's orbit and was heading back on their course towards Romulan Space. The tension begins again to build up as everyone is well aware of what will happen in the next few days. Meanwhile in main Engineering, Lisa and John were back to sitting by the console and waiting for a reply to their forged message that they sent to Tomahawk yesterday. Lisa was completely on edge and she got up from her seat and started to pace a bit. John leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

"Relax Lisa, I'm pretty sure we did everything right. There's no way Tomahawk won't know that it wasn't Twyla. Although, it is kind of ironic that we're doing this for tomorrow is April Fools day. This is the next step and I have a feeling that Tomahawk will issue new orders that will involve the Galaxy itself. After all, what Jaret has told us about him, the man is very ambitious and will believe anything that gets handed to him. We are doing the right thing, although I feel a bit nervous doing this."

Lisa turned around from her pacing and looked to him, "April Fools day? What is that? You are not the only one that is nervous. I know that, it's just that I'm not sure how we can pull this off? Seems like Jaret is right, it's high time we have the upper hand. I just don't want my people to suffer for this. Who knows how Tomahawk's going to react to one of his plans going awry. He might decide to hurt them more than he is telling us."

John was about to reply to Lisa's question when his console beeped. He turned to see what it was beeping for and smiled. "Well, it worked and I was right.. Tomahawk issued new orders for us. He wants us to sabotage the ship and he kindly downloaded us a blueprint on how to do it. How nice of him, sending a blueprint to me, the chief engineer of the Galaxy. Now I feel so special. Apparently his plans are that when the Galaxy approaches his ship, after they talk, he will wait for us to go into combat mode. Upon seeing us into combat mode, he will send a code to us that have already been implanted to take down our shields and weapons and transporters. He even sent a virus program to have it installed before hand. The code that he sends us will activate this virus program and apparently we can't do anything about it unless he sends another code to deactivate it. "

"That is one intense plan he has going on. Can we fool their sensors to think that the ship is currently in trouble when the time comes? I mean when he sends his code to us unknowingly?" asked Lisa.

"Sure we can, it will take a bit of effort but we can do it. I can reprogram this virus to actually infect Tomahawk's ship when he sends us that code too. It will just piggyback to him and he won't be aware of it. One good thing about this, when we send that last message to him, I slyly put a non harmful virus within the message. It gave us a copy of their blueprints on their ship too. Including how we can detect their cloaking shields now. I can update the sensors and David will be very happy with me. No more hidden surprises for us. So who wants to do the honors?" asked John as he handed Lisa the data padd that had lined up with suggestions for Jaret.

"Thanks John, I'm sure Jaret will be happy for this report. I will inform him of what you want to do and maybe we can formulate a counter plan to Tomahawk's plans. You still haven't told me what April Fools day is?" laughed Lisa as she took the data padd and headed out of engineering.

"Just ask Jaret or Ryan, I'm sure they can explain it to you!", John couldn't help but laugh too and he got up from his seat and looked around the corner to find that his staff was looking at him funny.. He straightens up his uniform and barked new orders. It was about time to win this battle one way or the other even if it means turning the tables on a guy who had no qualms about cheating to win.

On the bridge, Jaret was having a small meeting with Ryan and he was informing him of the next step of his plans when the door opened and in walked Lisa with the biggest smile on her face. She sat down and handed Jaret the data padd she had. Jaret took it and read it and looked up at Lisa, "I assume John is handling this change on the virus program?"

"Yes he is. In fact, I like what he has suggested but we need to go beyond the next step." Lisa smirked.

Ryan looked at Jaret wondering what was going on till Jaret handed him the data padd, as he read it, he too wondered what the next step is, and "She's got a good point. We got the technical aspects down thanks to John, but there is more to this fight than Tomahawk's is relaying to us."

Jaret shook his head and sighed, "We know that we are going to play a trick on Tomahawk. From what I understand, the moment he sends that code to our main computers to initiate the power failure and everything else that follows will in turn allow him to input his own pass code to control our ship. From what we feared earlier, he got all of the former senior staff's code, but Tomahawk didn't realize that we would have control of the ship by now and that we would've changed everything when we took command of this ship. What helped us though, is that Capt. James feared the same thing and had decided to wipe the computer core of all the pass codes before they left, leaving us to make our own. The Romulans didn't know where the Galaxy was, so that was another of Capt. James intentions. So what we are going to do instead is to simulate the power failure. So when Tomahawk is looking at us, he will think that his virus had activated and that is when we know that Tomahawk has ordered his ship to take themselves into transporter range within us. What he won't know is that we will be ready for that. So our shields will be down, but we will have our security teams deployed in all decks to stun our arrivals. Tomahawk will tell his officers that when they will board, there will be expecting panic but find something quite different. I think we better get

David in on this shall we?"

"Sounds like a good idea. Lt. Dyck, please report to the Captain's ready room" ordered Ryan into his combadge.

A few minutes went by and the door opened to reveal a very tired looking David. He sat down on the nearest couch behind Lisa and Ryan and groaned.

"Busy day?" asked Lisa.

"You wouldn't believe it, but I've been training our security forces in combat drills for the last 2 day and the good news they are better prepared now. I know we are ready. So what's up?" asked David.

"We are planning a surprise for Tomahawk. We have already figured out what we can do to counter his plans towards us. You'll laugh at this David, guess what he did? He actually replied to our message thinking it was from his spy. Then he proceeded to spill the beans to us without his knowledge. He wants a power failure as soon as he sends a code that will activate a virus in our computer, when that happens, we lose everything, weapons, shields, Transporters. So instead we are going to pull the wool over Tomahawk's eyes. They will board via transporter by their vessels and the moment they do, we throw our back shields on trapping their people on board us, and that will of course catch them off guard on the Romulan vessel. Meanwhile, John would by then piggyback the virus and code back to Tomahawk's ship, we will have our security teams on stand by on each deck and they'll be armed. While Lisa and John are in their computer, their weapons, transporters and shields will be useless while ours will remain online. We will deal with Tomahawk while his people are in the brig. So better get the brigs ready but make sure they're far away from Twyla's brig, I don't want any altercation to occur while we're in the midst of this. The less she knows and the less they know, will be better off for us all. During all this, John by then, will have updated your sensors for you, we can now detect their cloaking shields just in case Tomahawk had decided to expand on his plans for us. We might not no the full extent of his plans, but we know the more crucial aspects of it and we can plan according to It.", explained Jaret to David.

David whistled softly and he nodded, "Sounds like a plan. So does that mean we are going to board his ship once we get everything under control here?"

" I don't think that is wise, not when Tomahawk's got hostages on board his ship and they are way to vulnerable.", pointed out Ryan.

"Good point Ryan, the retrieval of the hostages also comes first. Since I was on board their ship and we have the schematics of the Tomahawk's ship from him, we can transport the survivors Aldrea to our ship. A few of them will need immediate medical attention and all but once they're on board, we can hail Tomahawk, and talk to him. He will not be happy but I don't think he'll do anything foolish. Who knows. While I talk to him, we will open the lines to the other ships so they know what's going on and not take any steps towards us. They're not responsible, but Tomahawk is though.", replied Jaret strongly.

The three of them understood what Jaret meant. They all sighed and looked at Jaret for anything else he had for them. Jaret closed his eyes, feeling very tired and leaned back in his chair. He opened his eyes and nodded his dismiss them. The others nodded and got up from their seats and left the Ready Room. Jaret watched them leave and once the door swished closed he went to his computer and turned the monitor on. Punched in a few buttons and activated his captain's log and started to log everything up this moment. He didn't mention to them that he had recorded a message just in case the Galaxy was destroyed. The moment it was, a probe would be launched to carry the message back to Earth. He considered it one last act as Captain and wanted to let the parents of his crew know what happened to them. He didn't want to be that cruel to them or allow fate to be cruel. He figured that if he let them know that the invasion would be on its way, perhaps it would be better if they know about it and stand a better chance being prepared for it.

During all of this meeting with some of the senior officers, the Galaxy sped quickly to their pre-arranged coordinates. Soon, they will cross the border of the Romulan Empire and decide who is fated is to win. The crew of the Galaxy awaits their eventual victory or their deaths, but with courage in their hearts and no fear. Many of the senior's officers made plans to prepare their staffs and to keep things ready for their trick against Tomahawk.

It was two days later when the Galaxy suddenly slowed to a slow pace. Then they've dropped out of high warp and stopped. There ahead of the Galaxy were five Romulan warbirds awaiting the arrival of the Galaxy. Once within sensor range, the four of the warbirds drifted off towards the outside of the designated battle ground. Tension increased on both ships for both crew were well ready for what lies ahead.

On the bridge of the Tomahawk's ship, Tomahawk was grinning quite broadly. He waited so long for this confrontation. As he looked to one of his tactical officers, " Hail the Galaxy!"

"Aye sir!", acknowledged the tactical officer.

Back on the bridge of the Galaxy, Ryan was sitting in the Captain's chair yet again while Tressa was busily putting something on his collar of his uniform. He winced when she finally finished her task.

"I hate doing this again Tressa. Here I am, playing the role of captain again. Why is it that I'm always in charge here? I haven't seen Jaret sit in this chair for longer than 25 minutes.", growled Ryan.

Tressa laughed quietly and patted his shoulder in reassurance, "This is just for today and please considered this a practice round when it will be you one day that will be a true captain. What better way to prepare oneself for this task. Besides, we are just doing this as part as our plan to fool Tomahawk's intention towards us. Just remain calm."

"Sir, Tomahawk's ship is hailing us.", alerted David.

Ryan rolled his eyes and sat up straighter in the chair before replying to David, "Very well, so it begins. Bring him onscreen."

The main viewer switch from the star filled screen to the bridge of a sneering Tomahawk's face. Tomahawk looked at Ryan like he was inspecting him for a moment before he spoke.

" To whom do I have the pleasure of taking to? I want Capt. Pieper!" snarled Tomahawk while he feigned ignorance.

"My name is Capt. Ryan Livingston and I'm sorry to inform you, Capt. Pieper was killed in action 6 days ago following a fatal injury. I am now in charge." Ryan gritted through his teeth while he was trying his hardest to remain calm. He didn't like this guy and he knew it, Tomahawk wasn't fooled by his face.

"Please accept my condolences for your loss Capt. Livingston. Now, since he has passed on, my agreement with him is now null and void. Perhaps we could come to a new agreement about our situation?", Tomahawk continued to feign his ignorance of what was really going on.

Ryan winced and shook that emotion off his face before Tomahawk saw it, and shook his head sternly before speaking to Tomahawk, " Sorry Tomahawk, your agreement with Jaret still stands. As to per his orders after his death, he left us his last will and testament and in it, he orders me to continue the agreement that he made with you. So, I'm here to tell you, we are going to honor his wishes and fight one on one with you."

"I see, then if that is what you wish, I pray that you have notified your families of your untimely demise.", accepted Tomahawk as a grin broke out on his face.

Upon seeing that grin on Tomahawk's face, Ryan got mad, " Who says we are going to meet our demise?", retorted Ryan hotly.

The screen flickered off in the next instant. Ryan turned to David behind him, and nodded.

"Let's get ready. Ryan to Jaret, its April Fools time.", snickered Ryan happily.

For once, things looked like it was going in the right direction. God knows, he had enough of the excitement the last 11 days for him. He shook his thoughts off and took his phaser out of his pocket and checked it to make sure that it was still on the right setting. It was time to put his game face on.

Jaret was several rooms down by engineering. John and a few security officers were stationed in main engineering on the off chance that it would be targeted by Tomahawk's people. Once he heard Ryan informing him that it was time. He knew that John was going to time the suppose' power failure with David on the bridge. He also noticed that the security team was checking their phaser rifles to make sure it was on the right settings. That gave Jaret the time to look down on his hand phaser and noted that it was set to stun.

In Medic Bay, Tammy having already been informed by Jaret and Ryan what they were going to do once the battle starts was ready for any casualties. She had all of her staff on duty and had all the supplies ready. John thankfully got the medical replicators fixed so they had lots of supplies on hand to deal with any possible situation. She had a high hopes in her staff that they were just as ready as she was. Everyone was fitted with phasers too just in case they get any uninvited intruders.

Again in Main engineering, John stared at his console very carefully and had his hands poised over one or several buttons, so that as soon as Tomahawk's code would appear before his eyes on his monitor, he can immediately shut down main power to make it look like the ship was having problems.

Back on the Bridge, Ryan still seated in the Captain's chair finally issued out orders, "Red alert, raise the shields and arm the weapons, this should give Tomahawk the go to send us his command only we will be ready for him. Lisa in the meantime, as soon as John gives you the go ahead, get inside their computers and get their weapons and shields offline along with their transporters. I don't want to take any chances. What about those four ships?"

Lisa looked at her sensor readings before replying, "Those four ships are still hanging outside the assigned combat zone, so I'm hoping Tomahawk doesn't decide to call on them for their assistance once he realizes what's going on. Don't worry, I'll get inside their computers and have them at our feet before they know it. Transporters are standing by with me so we can get the hostages out. Medic bay is also on stand by to receive them as well. I say, we're ready than ever.", muttered Lisa.

Once David heard what Lisa said about the other ships, he smiled. Thank to John's upgrades on the sensors, he knows there are no cloaked ships hanging about, and so he punched in his command to raise the shields and weapons. He hoped that would make Tomahawk immediately send his code. Good thing he spilled the beans two days ago… and they were ready.

Several minutes ticked by slowly and then the power started to fluctuate. He made sure that their sensors will register that they have no shields or weapons in the meantime and he noticed that Tomahawk's vessel closed the gap between the two of them. He smiled to himself and knew what was next in store.

"Here it goes. We have intruders on deck 36, 34, 33, 5 and we have some coming our way!" warned David. Soon the sound of a transporter beam could be heard on the bridge. Several security officers were waiting for the arrival of their guest and were ready to stun them once the transport cycle was complete.

"I've piggybacked the code back to Tomahawk's vessel, Lisa you have the go ahead to root around in their computers. David, it's all yours!" announced John through the comlink.

Ryan jumped out of his chair as he noticed that the arrival of Romulan soldiers were appearing right in front of him, he got his hand phaser ready. As soon as the transport cycle was finished, the Romulan soldiers took aim on the bridge crew only to find out

that their weapons were not working.

"Oh by the way, surprise!" grinned Ryan as he stunned the first soldier down while the rest of the security team stunned the rest of the group. The small parties of 6 were down on the ground, stunned. Their weapons noisily clattered to the floor. Ryan put away his phaser while he looked at David to get any further reports.

"We got reports coming in from those decks, our guest are being handled quite nicely. No injuries reported on either sides, but our guests are going to be in one lousy mood when they realize they've been tricked." smirked David.

"Get those shields and weapons back online, its time to finish this on our terms! John, get the subspace loop ready to transmit, from looking at Lisa's flying fingers, it won't be long before Tomahawk starts yelling at his own people for having ship wide problems." Ryan chuckled as he bends down to the stunned Romulan party and took their weapons away from them and handed them to the nearest security officer.

Lisa could be heard muttering to herself, "Just about there, how do you like that Tomahawk! Payback time!"

Meanwhile in Main engineering, John was busily helping Lisa out by disarming the Romulan soldier's weapons when the arrived here and they maintained their false sense of power failure to the Romulan vessels sensors. He grinned as he saw that Lisa finally finished her task.

"John, how long?", asked Jaret when he finally finished talking to his security officers about their unconscious guests.

"Oh, any minute now. You might want to get to the bridge by now, so you can tell Tomahawk himself that he failed. I'll be transmitting the conversation to the other Romulan Warbirds so they know what's going on." informed John as he turned to Jaret and ushered him out of main engineering.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

On the Romulan vessel, Tomahawk was grinning with satisfaction at his success. Then all of the sudden, his bridge lights went dimmed and then he turned to his tactical officers and growled out a question, " What's going on with our power?"

"I don't know sir, but I'll contact main engineering right away." stuttered the Romulan tactical officer.

"Get this problem solved quickly!" roared Tomahawk.

"Sir, the Galaxy is hailing us.", informed the communication officer.

"Well, they must be prepared to surrender to us. Put them on the main viewer!" Tomahawk smiled as he leaned back into his chair.

On the bridge of the Galaxy, Jaret finally arrived and nodded to David to contact Tomahawk's ship, and took his seat next to Ryan who was happily relinquishing his command over to Jaret again.

"So, how was your first taste of command Ryan?", asked Jaret grinning.

"I'll ask for it when it's really time for me, not for my first year sir, I still have lots to learn and of course, I'll learn all that from you." smiled Ryan.

"Sir, Tomahawk appearing on main viewer.", alerted David.

Jaret's attention switched to seeing Tomahawk's very surprised face and Jaret had the urge to do something very childish but he refrained from doing it. He didn't want to appear rude to him.

"Ah, Tomahawk, long time no see, did you miss me?" greeted Jaret coyly.

"You are, you're supposed to be dead! How? Why?!" stuttered Tomahawk loudly.

"Well, I do have to give you some credit after all, your spy did well on not being found but she made one mistake and that was not making sure I was dead. I knew who had attacked me but I don't know why she would side up with you. Oh, if you're currently having problems with your power, shields and weapons, please by all mean consider it a gift from me to you since you intended the same thing for my ship!", growled Jaret lightly.

"So, you caught my spy, bravo Jaret. So that must have been you that send the message to me regarding the next orders. Did you forget something, I believe you did, after all, I still have the hostages on board my ship." Tomahawk baited Jaret, hoping to anger him enough to do something stupid.

"The hostage, that's right, I had thought of that, but just ask the officer who is standing next to you, the officer who is no doubt afraid to tell you what we know. The hostages are no longer onboard your vessel Tomahawk, they're on board mine. We just didn't disrupt your power supply; we also tampered with your transporters. We took your hostages back without even setting foot on your ship. Now I believe this is what I call Checkmate' Tomahawk. We won on the same very terms that you stipulated to us." smiled Jaret.

"You didn't win, you cheated!" roared Tomahawk defiantly.

"No, I didn't cheat; I simply used what available tools that I had. But to be polite I just turned the table on you. It's over Tomahawk, we got what we needed back and we also beat you fair and square. Go home and tell your superior that you lost and you can tell them why. It's the end of the line for you.", calmly noted Jaret as he stood up and turned his back on Tomahawk and nodded to David to cut the communication.

"I'll make you…." Tomahawk started but was cut off as David effectively shut him down.

"Well, that was enlightening." mutter Tressa as she stared to Jaret with disbelief at him.

"Don't start Tressa, but now he has to deal with the other Romulan vessels that were on the side watching all of this." sighed Jaret tiredly as he sat back down in his chair.

"I thought I should wait till you finished your conversation with Tomahawk before I mentioned this. You have one of the warbirds contacting us. Shall I put them on the main viewer?" asked David.

Jaret smiled, "Please do, and I'm interested in this."

The view screen went on and on it came an older Romulan male with black hair that had streaks of grey in it., "Capt. Pieper, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm glad to know that you survived."

"Thank you, but May I ask who I am talking to?" asked Jaret feeling very confused for the moment.

"My name is Adm. Salen Reilu. It is my understanding that you had an agreement with Tomahawk regarding the hostages of Aldrea?" sighed Adm. Reilu.

Jaret was stunned and leaned back into his chair, his hand going through his hair and looked back at Adm. Reilu, "I'm afraid you're right. Tomahawk wanted this ship pitted against us, but unfortunately I didn't plan for a saboteur to be on board following his orders. I should've of expect it but I didn't, that sort of says a lot about my lack of experience here. Despite it all, I survived that and was able to turn the tables on Tomahawk. As you are aware, we have detained several of his soldiers in my brigs. The hostages of Aldrea are back on board where they belong. Tomahawk attacked them from orbit, and I find that distasteful. There is no honor in his tactics and I don't trust him. My advice to you would be the same, don't trust Tomahawk, he has way too much ambition for his own good."

Adm. Reilu nodded, "Yes, I am aware of that. There is a reason why I was sent here to observe this. Some of us have suspected Tomahawk of doing things outside the chain of command. He lied to us time and time again. He informed us that he had a spy among you, but the spy was one of ours who underwent a cosmetic change to look like you but apparently that wasn't the case. I hate to inform you, but Tomahawk hadn't intended to keep her around for much longer. One of my own trusted aides have found out that he had a written order for her execution on the side once you guys were taken care of. He's been suspected of dealing some foul plays back on Romulas. Now, we really know how far he intended to go. Please, accept our humble apologies to you and the people of Aldrea. Its time for us to leave things alone. Tomahawk has been arrested and will be dragged back to Romulas to face charges of his own making. By all means Captain, you and your ship are free to go. Please inform the people of Aldrea that they will no longer be bothered by anyone in the Romulan Empire."

"Very well, I will transport his people back to the ship. Good luck Adm. Reilu and I hope we don't have to meet again in such circumstances such as war." agreed Jaret as he signaled to David to let the brig know that they'll be returning their guests back to the Romulan Warbird.

"As for your traitor, she is yours to take care of. She was never endorsed by us and we ask that you take that into consideration. However, I know she has broken some of your laws and that you have to deal with that. Good bye Capt. Pieper and good luck." signed off Adm. Reilu.

Jaret looked at the view screen when it switched back to the view of the stars and saw that the Romulan Vessels were turning away and leaving them alone. He heaved a huge sigh in relief. It was finally over, the whole stressing is over.

"Jaret, what will you do with Twyla?", asked Ryan with concern.

"To be honest, I don't know, but I will deal with her when I can. I have some thinking to do. But now, all I want to do is head over to medic bay and see how the hostages or rather, the survivors of Aldrea are doing. Ryan, you have the bridge once again. Helm,

Please take us out of Romulan space quickly. I have no desire to remain here any longer." Jaret asked as he got up from his seat and strode over to the turbolifts with his shoulders hunched down.

"Aye sir, good luck." acknowledged Ryan as he got up from his seat and sat down in Jaret's seat once he vacated it. He watched him go and was concerned, he looked to Tressa.

"I know Ryan, believe me, I know. Jaret is asking himself some hard questions now. He's been avoiding it for some days but now, he has no choice but face up to it." Tressa stated as she wringed her hands in worry too.

"I thought he would've talked to you by now? He's going to talk to Tammy again right?" asked Ryan.

"I don't think this is something that Tammy or I can help him with. He needs to talk to someone with far more experience than we do." Tressa shook her head.

"Oh, I haven't thought of that." Ryan suddenly knew what she meant by that.

Lisa watched the two of them from her station and was just as worried as they were. She knew that they were all young and new to all of this but she was so proud on the inside that they have rose to the challenge quite well.

In the turbolift, Jaret was leaning up against the railing and was in deep thought. He sighed again. Sometimes just when he thinks its over, it isn't. Was he fooling himself that he could do this? The computer beeped to let him know that he had reached his destination and the door glided open. He looked up and saw that various people were walking about and were back to their normal routine.

Meanwhile, in Medic Bay, Tammy was very busy treating the survivors of Aldrea. She was busy conversing with one of her assistants over the medical care of a young woman who had a minor phaser burn on her arm. She pointed towards the instrument that would help facilate her healing. Before Tammy could step away to look at another patient she was stopped by another.

"Excuse me miss?", asked the middle age man.

Tammy turned to hand the data padd over to her assistant and went to the man, "Yes, may I help you?" she asked as she grabbed the data padd that was on the bed next to the man. She noticed that he hasn't been looked over yet and reached into her coat pocket to get her tricorder out to scan him.

"When will I be seeing your Capt. Pieper?" he asked as he sat on the bed while she was scanning him with the medical tricorder.

"You know Jaret?! Who are you?" Tammy looked up in shock at that question and dropped her tricorder on the floor.

"I'm sorry, how rude of me, my name is Capt. Terran James, but most folks calls me James since I don't like the name I was given when I was born. And who do I have the honor of speaking to?" introduced James as he helped Tammy to retrieve her fallen tricorder off the floor and handed it back to her.

Tammy was still in shock when she reached for her tricorder and looked at the reading before replying to him, "So you're the former captain of this ship, well, I'm Dr. Tammy Livingston. And as for Jaret, he should be coming down once he deals with Tomahawk." smiled Tammy.

"Well, speak of the devil, he's already here." chuckled James.

Tammy whirled around and came face to face with Jaret and smiled at him, " Gee, you're fast. Well, before you ask, everyone is fine despite some minor wounds and malnutrition. All that is being taken care of. We received no injuries on our side dealing with the intruders. And as for you James, you're okay health wise, but you need to get some food and fluids in you. At your age, it's not a good thing to make your body stress out. Jaret, he is all yours and he can leave Medic Bay providing you don't push him too much."

James was helped off the bed by Tammy and Jaret before he turned to her, "Thank you Doctor. I know what you mean about stressing me out. My doctor says the same thing, you must be twins."

"I don't know, but I did read your medical history in the computer logs. You're the type that will sneak away for a physical but you never do. Just take it easy, and consider that an order." Tammy smiled as she made a note on the data padd as she ushered the two of them out of her way.

"Spoken like a medical officer, very well, I shall not overtire him, happy now?", teased Jaret.

"Yep, now get out of here you two, I have work to do.", smiled Tammy as she went back to oversee her assistants and patients.

James and Jaret left Medic Bay to Tammy knowing full well if they don't leave, she'll drag them out in order for her to do her work in some peace and quiet. Once in the corridor, James stopped Jaret and asked, "What's wrong Jaret?"

Jaret looked at James and looked back down at his feet. He was struggling with some inner turmoil and James picked up on that. Despite Jaret's attitude in Medic Bay, James knew that something was really bothering Jaret. He just stood there waiting for him to say something.

Jaret suddenly sighed and he barely spoke loud enough for James to hear, "I need advice from a former Captain on something very important."

James noticed the crestfallen look on Jaret's face and nodded, "Very well, any place where we can talk so we can't be interrupted."

"Yes, the best place would be my quarters, please, come this way James." motioned Jaret towards the turbolift. James nodded and placed his hand on Jaret's shoulder all the while they were walking towards the turbolift. James knew that he needed to talk and he had a feeling it was very important but he just didn't know exactly how important.

Several minutes later, James and Jaret were in his quarters while James was drinking some coffee and Jaret was having a glass of root beer. James just listens while Jaret was having the most serious discussion in a long time.

"So what advice do you want from me to impart?" asked James after he finished his cup of coffee as he set it down on the coffee table.

Jaret looked at his drink wistfully and looked up at James and sighed sadly, "There's a whole lot you don't know since we last talked on board Tomahawk's ship. We were only 2 days into our mission when I was attacked by one of our own. Only thing is that, she was never one of us, she may have agreed to help us but she betrayed us by allowing herself to be a double agent. She was working for Tomahawk. She had orders to kill me. Now she got caught, since I survived and I knew who had attacked me. We have her in the brig currently and Adm. Reilu released her from Romulan Control since she wasn't fully endorsed by their government. Now, the question remains, what do I do with her? I've tried talking to her, but she won't say anything. She won't tell us why she joined up with Tomahawk. It's so frustrating not knowing what to do."

"That's a handful you have to deal with now. Normally, if we were still in my day and age, she would be handed over to face the board of Inquiry to figure out what punishment should be meted out. Unfortunately that isn't the case here. Is there anyone you trust? Adult wise? You can always go to them and let them know what you want done or ask them for their opinions.", suggested James.

"That sounds like a good idea. One of them I know is involved in the law on a daily basis. So what do I do with her till we get back to Earth? Do I tell her about what Tomahawk had originally planned and that she was really never endorsed by the Romulan government?" agreed Jaret.

"I think you should let her know, the truth of the situation will force her to come to terms with what she had done wrong. In fact, I make a bet on that she will realize that she did do some wrong and will accept any punishment for her. Talk to her anyway Jaret. It's important to let her know that she's not going to be left alone to deal with this. She has to know that she's forgiven for what she done. Doing that might also help the both of you to heal. You've been beating yourself up for too long since the attack and I bet you haven't really talked to anybody except me about this." pointed out James as he filled up his cup with coffee again and took another gulp of it down.

Jaret understood what was being said to him, so he put down his drink and looked back up at James, "I guess this is the only duty no captain wishes to undertake right James?"

"I'm afraid so, I have to say personally Jaret, I don't envy your position here and I haven't been in your situation yet and I hoped not to ever.", winced James in understanding.

"To err is human, to forgive divine. Thanks for your advice, that took some of the weight off my shoulders but I still have a lot to do.", thanked Jaret as he got up from his seat and walked around the coffee table.

"Not a problem. Now…I have a question for you, how long till we reach Aldrea?" asked James as he changed the subject, as he placed his unfinished drink back on the table he too got up from his own seat.

"Three days, John wants us to take it easy on the engines after all, this ship was buried for a long time. He just wants us to take it easy, since we left Earth, we've been on the go constantly, its time we take it easy and plus we want your people to recover from their ordeal. Tressa made a note of that yesterday to me and I agree with her. Their might be some residual trauma but she wants to make sure they'll be okay when we do get back and help you repair the damage done by Tomahawk.", chuckled Jaret.

"It'll be good to get home. How bad was the damage?", asked James cautiously.

"I'll send a copy of the reports to your quarters, you can see it for your own eyes rather than me telling you. If you have any other request, please don't hesitate to ask Me.", advised Jaret as he extended his hand out to James.

"Thank you Jaret, now if you can excuse me, I'll be heading back to Medic Bay to see if the rest of my people are being released from Medic Bay and then I can finally rest a bit.", smiled James as he took Jaret's hand and shook it briefly before he let go and left Jaret's room.

Jaret watched James walk to the door and saw him go. When the door swished closed behind him, Jaret went to his desk and turned on the monitor and started to punch in some commands to the computer. The computer chirped in response as it was working on Jaret's request. He just stared past his monitor and looked out the window of his quarters. Saw the stars slipping past him as the ship was in a low warp. He smiled a bit and leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Back on Earth, at the Estevan Police Station, Chief Gerald O' Hara was in his office, going through his stack of messages that has somehow has climbed a bit too high for him to deal with. Every morning he comes back to work, more messages were waiting for him and every time he had tried to get it down to a reasonable height it climbed right back up at him. It was a never ending battle for him. He hated having to answer the same questions over and over for he didn't know as much as the parents did. Perhaps it was time for him to retire? An early retirement is what he might want to do now but he shook his head and wondered why is he thinking of giving up? He had a job to do and he'll keep on doing it no matter how hectic it might become. He sighed and leaned back in his chair as he put the newest stack of messages on top of the old ones. Then suddenly the phone buzzed, and he knew it was from his secretary. Normally she just takes the messages so she can leave him alone but this was new.

He reached over and pushed the button on the intercom and growled, "What is it Mary Anne?"

"Sir, you have a long distance call, I suggest you take it, it's a real long distance call." replied Mary Anne in an urgent tone in her voice.

Gerald was puzzled, he heard that tone in her voice that said it was no doubt important but who could it be? So he sighed loudly again to himself and pressed the blinking line one button, and picked up the cradle to talk.

"Chief O' Hara speaking, how I may help you?" asked Gerald.

"Hello Chief, how are you holding up?" asked a cherry voice that the Chief could easily recognize.

Gerald's eyes widened in surprise and looked at his stack of messages then cleared his voice before speaking, " Jaret!? Is that you? How is that possible? That is one long distance call you are making! What is going on? Is everything okay? Did something happen, what happened anyway?!"

"Yes, it's me. You can let the parents of my crew know that we're all okay. Nothing bad happened among other things. We will be returning to Earth in about a week or so. First off, we're dropping the survivors of Aldrea back and we're going to help them rebuild their city since the damage from the attack by Tomahawk was a little extreme. Would you please let Mr. Cryer know that when we do get back, John wanted to have a meeting with the School board on how we could go about rebuilding the school? Since it will be a brand new school, perhaps we can make some changes with the layout or something. John wants to do this as a gift. He is still feeling quite badly about the damage and that he was forced to tear the school down. But, before I get off topic, I wanted to let you know though, as soon as we get back, you'll have to take custody of a former crew of mine.", explained Jaret.

"Custody? What happened?" asked a startled Gerald who immediately got concerned.

"Her name is Twyla Mosely. Just ask Mr. Cryer about her and have him contact her parents. I have a feeling they might want to hire a lawyer right away. The reasons why is that, two days into our mission, she attempted to kill me. What we found out later is that she was working for Tomahawk at that time. We have her in custody but seeing as I do have some authority to punish her but I don't think I could do that being a bit involved about the whole situation. I can't think neutral about this as it is a bit emotional for me. When we do get back, just have a cell for her for us to transport her. I would rather give the court my recommendation about what to do with her but I don't want her off too lightly. I hope you can do that?" informed Jaret.

"Very well, I shall see what I can do. You want GPS coordinates for the cell?" asked Gerald.

"Yes, that will do, and we will do the rest. Till then, take care and have fun letting that stack of messages get cleared up!", signed off Jaret.

The phone line went dead and Gerald hanged up, and he looked at the messages and groaned because he then realized that it would be another long night for him. No rest for the wicked he thought and he sighed and pushed the speaker to his secretary, "Mary Anne, please bring me a pot of coffee, looks like I'll be here all night. Also, please phone Mr. Cryer and have him come here, he might as well help me out with all these messages we're going to be doing."

"Is that all sir? I shall do that right away." Acknowledge Mary Anne.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

The Galaxy finally arrived to orbit around Aldrea three days later. The crew was very happy to do something much more worthwhile as they have become good friends to the survivors that were on board for a short time. It amazes them that they have given them the best gift they could in their lifetime. They have the ability to have adventures and to learn what it means to be human. On the surface of Aldrea, there were some of the crew helping the people of Aldrea rebuild and in the process they were learning more of what their job entails on board the Galaxy. They eagerly took advantage of the offer and were rapidly learning new tools.

"Whew, I can't believe how much has to be done!" exclaimed John as he looked down on the portable monitor that was showing the new blueprints for the city.

"John, that is quite a bit of change around there! Who helped you go through all of these changes on the plans? Then again, why am I asking you?" laughed Lisa.

"James and I were going over it last night. There are some of the areas that are unsafe now and that has to come down. Plus, James doesn't want to look like he's paranoid but they want to upgrade a lot of things. Since they couldn't do it years ago, they can now since we have the tools and the supplies to do it. No sense in limiting you guys anymore. Another thing that concerned him was that you guys had no defense capabilities and he wanted to make sure that this time, they were prepared. We will be leaving some orbiting sensors around Aldrea that will monitor things for you. Best defense is a better offense in my opinion. Now, that old generator you guys had can't be fixed, but we can replace it and have a better sounding one. It will increase the power outage for your people so you're not limited on what you can or can't do. Also, this time, at Jaret's request, we're installing a subspace transceiver that way you can remain in touch with us if you need anything." John explained as he pointed towards the new changes he was talking about on the monitor.

Lisa looked at what John was pointing to and nodded her head in agreement. It was going to be a long 2 weeks or more but she felt enthusiastic about it all. Then for one fleeting moment she sobered a bit and John caught it but before he could ask her about it she said, "Okay, I'm going to head over here. Tammy and mom are seeing what they can do to the Medical Center and get it back and running. Are we having a separate generator there or what?"

The two of them got back into deep conversation and David was observing them from a distance. He shook his head in amazement for John was very much in his element. He heard the sound of the transporter hum and turned around. The new supplies have finally arrived and with it was the new power generator that John had begged for. He smiled and was glad that things were going smoothly for the first time in a long while.

Elsewhere on Aldrea, Jaret was with James and a bunch of the former command crew of the Galaxy. Jaret wanted to hear from them about their experiences so that he could file them away for future uses. Plus he wanted to talk to them about Lisa and another important topic that was put on the sidelines till now.

"So, you're Captain of the Galaxy now?" asked an elderly man who was seated in a nice chair made of wood and cushions. Jaret looked at the man, wondering if he missed it all.

"Yes I am. It's been an amazing challenge but I still have lots to learn and learn I will. I wanted to get your opinion on something though." admitted Jaret.

"What is it that you wanted to get our opinion on?" James asked as he got a bit curious about what Jaret has to say.

"John has chosen to inform me that there is another ship on Earth. According to the sensor logs, it is one of your own. We don't know what happened or anything yet but I wanted to let you know that there is a strong possibility that which ever ship it is, the crew might've left or crashed with it. I wanted to let you know that John wanted to get this unknown ship up and running but he wanted to get your permission first since the last thing he want to do is offend you." Jaret explained as he handed James the data padd with the recorded sensors from when the Galaxy first crashed and when they first got into space.

James took the data padd and looked at it. He sucked in a breath of shock and looked at Jaret with a grave face before saying something, "They crashed there before we did? Oh man, the ship is at the bottom of the ocean. God knows how it happened and if the ship is even worth fixing up." James handed the data padd around to the rest of his former staff. They too looked at it and were just as crestfallen as James was when the realization hit them that one of their own crashed on Earth long ago.

"Jaret, find out what happened and let us know either way. If the ship is able to get fixed then do it. Having another ship would be very ideal for you guys. Heaven knows that you can use it. There might be more people out there that want this chance at an adventure." James nodded as he made up his mind. The rest of the group of men too nodded in agreement with James' request.

"Another thing I wanted to talk to you was about Lisa. She has informed me that her place is here on Aldrea but in the event that we get the time for another mission, she'll be back to join us. I know she is rather young to be a full fledge officer but I like to keep her as a member of my crew and my command staff. I felt that I should let you know before hand," informed Jaret.

"That sounds reasonable Jaret and I like that idea too. I don't think Lisa would consider giving up the chance to go with you guys again. She has talked non stop about you and the friends she had made on board. I'm happy for her in that way and I won't stand in her way. Will Lisa also talk to her mother about what she wants to do?" asked James.

"I have a feeling that might be what she planned to do today. I know that her mom is with Tammy in the Medical Centre attempting to put things back to right there. Speaking of which, I should get back on board, Ryan has talked to me about my lack of taking command lately and I have to admit I have been doing that. Ryan wants to be down here, helping and I'm going to let him. I have some other issues to take care of anyhow." Jaret grinned as he turned to leave them.

"How long do you think you'll be here and I'm sure you're all anxious to get home?" James asked before Jaret could leave them.

Jaret stopped in mid stride and looked at his own crew in the distance helping the people of Aldrea restore their home, "Home, that sounds so strange now since we've been onboard the Galaxy for about 2 weeks now." sighed Jaret.

"Now, you're thinking like a captain, you started to refer the ship as home. Go ahead Jaret; I'll tackle John to see how things are progressing since its only day one." James chuckled as he slapped Jaret on the back.

"Have we really though? We're still young and we still have so much to learn. Although I think the most part that worries me is our parents and our school work that we will have to catch up. I'm sure we'll do okay. I have to figure out how we can balance our school life with the Galaxy now." murmured Jaret as he strode away from them.

"You're worried about school work? I think you can handle that! I mean for goodness sake, you faced off with the Romulans, something you haven't done before." shouted James after Jaret.

"Yeah, thanks for poking fun at that. School work is harder since my teacher is the school we go to has to be rebuilt before we can do anything. After all, we had to tear it down in order to free the Galaxy!" explained Jaret as he waved his good bye to James.

Soon Jaret turned the corner and was gone from James' sight.

"Oh that would be difficult. I didn't know that their school was demolished. Now I know what he's worried about." understood James as he went back to work.

All Jaret could do was shake his head in amazement on how quickly that conversation ended. He sighed tiredly and went to join David at the transport site. He waved to David to let him know that he'll be heading back to the Galaxy.

"Leaving so soon Jaret?" asked David.

"Yes I am. Ryan will be down here since I think its time for me to actually take command of the bridge. I've got something important to do tomorrow that I can't put off for much longer." Jaret nodded.

"Okay, talk to you later then Jaret." David acknowledged.

The sound of the transport hum took David by surprised and saw that Jaret was gone before he could say anything else. He shook his head and saw that another person was beaming down. Once the transport cycle was done, there was Ryan looking very happy.

"Welcome to Aldrea sir. John is over there, you might want to see what he can assign you. I'm stuck her coordinating the supplies for everyone. If you need anything, just contact me and I'll get the supplies down here for you." David explained as he pointed Ryan the way where John was.

"Thanks David, I will do that." Ryan grinned as he went off to see John who was busy arguing with Tammy about something. He sighed, nothing changes it seems.

The next day came all too soon for Jaret. He was sitting down in front of his desk in his quarters, having some early breakfast. He had trouble sleeping last night no matter what he did. He wasn't kidding to David about having something important to do today. He read what he had typed into the computer and was about to save it but he stopped. He shook his head, "No, I'm going to save it after I talk to her."

Jaret pushed his breakfast away and drank the last of the fruit juice down before he got up and headed out the door. Several minutes later, Jaret found himself in front of Twyla's brig. She was very surprised to see him there since that day they had argued.

"Twyla, I've decided on some things that you should be aware of. I hate to do this but this is something you should know before hand. As what you don't know, Tomahawk was just using you as a way for him to get what he wanted. He's been arrested and no doubt will be stripped of his command and god knows what punishment he's facing. Adm. Reilu informed me that Tomahawk recruiting you wasn't endorsed by their government and that he had planned to have you executed later on. I'm sorry to tell you that you were just a pawn to him and nothing more. What I have decided is that when we get back to Earth, you will face punishment for your part in trying to kill me, but that's all I'm going to charge you with. The double agent or treason I'm going to let it slide, you were tricked and I'm not going to hold you to that. I want you to know, that you have much potential to be a good officer here. John has told me that much. You have a very good affinity for engineering and I'm going to recommend that you be put on probation after you serve 2 year in jail. Since by the time we get back home, you'll be in the brig for about 3 weeks, I will ask that they already put that time forward. Once you're out, you'll be back here to serve under John again." Jaret explained.

Twyla looked at Jaret with shock and amazement on her face. She swallowed before she gathered enough courage to speak, "I too had a few days of thinking too. I know that I've done some wrong but I guess my reasons for it were selfish. I will take whatever punishment is allowed. I do want to be a part of this but I don't know if that will happen. After all, 2 years is a long time."

Jaret nodded, "Very well, I will see you later. When we do get home, whatever happens is out of my hands."

Jaret turned around and left the brig, and left Twyla to ponder her new direction in life, whichever it may be.

Two weeks have gone by almost too fast for the crew of the Galaxy. Many felt that to go back to Earth was almost going backwards and not forward in their life. The tension once again returned and it was felt by Jaret and his command staff.

In Medic Bay, Tammy was busy working on some last minute stuff. She was in her office, arranging stuff on the computer that she will have to send back to the health authorities in her town and elsewhere. Nothing major she knew but she didn't want to be accused of being lax in her duty. She took it very seriously. She sighed in frustration, "Okay, there is simply not enough time for me to do this. I have too much to do!"

"Tammy, what are you upset about now?" asked a soft voice.

Tammy looked up and saw that Tressa and Ryan were standing in her doorway. She groaned as soon as she saw Ryan's childish grin on his face.

"I just hate to leave here Tressa, I love my work here on board the Galaxy and I feel that it's just pointless to go back to school." Tammy growled.

"You're not the only one who feels that way. I feel the same way, being a commander has brought me some perspective that I haven't thought of in a long time." Ryan sobered before Tressa could speak up.

"Tammy, Ryan, I know that this is most difficult on you. The entire crew feels that way. We all have made some strong bonds between us and the people on board here. It will be a bit depressing but remember, this is not an end for us, rather a beginning. We just haven't come to terms with it yet. Lisa knew that and can you imagine how it felt to leave us? She had duties to fulfill on Aldrea and she couldn't do that while on Earth. One day, when we don't have to worry about school, we will be back. Just be patient." Tressa pointed out to them both.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Jaret was in his office talking to James via subspace.

"We're just about home James, but it's been an extremely long journey this has been. I hate to leave her in orbit. I feel like a traitor for even thinking about it." Jaret chuckled as he leaned back in his chair.

"Jaret, don't worry. You have already made sure that the computer is pre programmed with its instruction. We've thought of everything we can to make sure that the Galaxy remain in your command and care. Now, just keep leading by example. Have you also talked to Twyla?" asked James.

"Yes, and I think she's been doing more thinking since I've talked to her. I've already been in contact with the authorities and have everything planned. Chief O'Hara and his men will see to transporting her to a facility so that she can spend her term there. However, what she doesn't know is that if she is on good behavior, she can be out in less than a year. I feel that she can find that out on her own, or at least earn it on her own."

"That sounds reasonable Jaret; you've been more than compassionate about this situation than I though?" James agreed.

"A first I wasn't James, believe me, I wasn't so charitable then. After awhile, with Ryan, Lisa, Tammy, and Tressa hounding me day and night since that incident, I've since then came around to finally coming to terms with it." Jaret pointed out.

"Good to have good friends to care for. Anyhow Jaret, wish I could talk more, but from what I see behind you, the Galaxy just dropped out of warp." James grinned.

"Ryan to Jaret, we have dropped out of warp and are on low impulse. Earth is only 30 minutes away." Informed Ryan through the comn link.

Jaret swiveled his chair and saw that indeed the ship has dropped out of warp and turned back to face James on the monitor and growled, "I hate it when you're right. I suppose I better take my place on the bridge now?"

"See you later Jaret, and good luck." James smiled as he signed off. The computer monitor went black.

Jaret sighed to himself and pushed himself out of his chair and headed towards the bridge. He stopped at the door and looked back. He hated to leave but James was right. It was time to do it but he didn't know how hard it will be in the next few months. At least, he groused, "We still have a school to rebuild."

With that, he walked through the door and onto the bridge. Ryan was already seated in his own spot and cocked his head in a questioningly manner.

Once Jaret sat in his own chair, he could see on the view screen that the Galaxy has almost reached Earth, it was a faint image but he knew it would be several minutes before he can see Earth clearly. He leaned back and grinned and looked at Ryan.

"Well? How was your conversation with James?" prompted Ryan.

"It was okay, but I think for the most part, I'm having a bit of trouble realizing that soon, we're going back to our families who no doubt are waiting to give us an earful and that we still have to rebuild our school. We're not out of the words yet." Jaret sighed as he crossed his legs.

"Home…here comes the hard part.", muttered David behind Jaret.

Jaret turned to look at David, "Not looking forward to school or parents?"

"Okay, school and Parents are a part of it, but I think I can speak for everyone when I say this, I am not looking forward to going back to the mundane things. I believe we still have lots to do up here. I know John was complaining that there is so much he wants to do project wise but he won't be able to. We're limited to only being on board on the weekend!" explained David.

"Good point, but that is something we have to do. We have to find the balance between our duties here and…." chuckled Ryan.

"We have our duties to our families on Earth. We will figure it out in due time." said a voice.

Jaret chuckled and looked to his left, and saw that Tammy just exited out of the turbo lift.

"Yes, Lisa will be doing that too. I'm sure she's facing the same thing we're all facing. Now, let's not worry about this, after all, we're a role model for our crew and we have to show them that we can do this." Jaret agreed with Tammy's comment.

Tammy sat down and laughed, "I'm sure we can do this, after all, what's tougher than facing off with the Romulans? I know that there are going to be some challenges ahead of us family wise but we will manage."

"Good point, care to test that theory?", asked Ryan.

"Just you wait Ryan…I'll get even with you one day.", promised Tammy.

"Okay cut it out, the both of you. Why did I have two siblings on my command staff I'll never know. And that would be my next advice to any other captain to be." muttered Jaret to himself.

"Next captain to be? What do you mean by that comment Jaret?" asked Ryan who was suddenly intrigued.

Before Jaret could reply the helm officer interrupted him.

"Sir, we're approaching Earth." informed the helm officer.

"Finally, Standard orbit. David would you please inform Chief O' Hara of our arrival and make the appropriate steps to transfer Twyla to the appointed cell position." commanded Jaret.

"Aye sir, commencing Standard orbit." acknowledges the helm officer and David at the same time.

"I can't believe we're home. So, how do we go about this?" asked Tammy.

"Home? When do I issue the order to disembark?" asked Ryan as well.

Jaret looked at both of them and was amazed that they have similar track minds. He shook his head and looked at Ryan first, "After Twyla gets down on the surface and everyone leaves level by level, shift by shift. If I'm correct, the bridge and senior officers will be the last to leave the Galaxy since I have to program the computer to go on auto pilot among other things. The last thing I want to do is overwhelm the transporter and incur John's wrath." explained Jaret.

"Well, that means I better let my staff know, I'll see you guys later. Let's hope all goes well." hinted Tammy as she got up from her chair and hurriedly went to the turbolift.

"The transport site will be the school Tammy, let your staff know that, from there, they can go home." shouted Ryan before the door of the turbo lift closed.

"Good idea, I'll mention that to the transporter chief. Ryan, you have the bridge, I know that I'm leaving you in command again but I'm going to do a final log in my ready room, till then, everything is all up to you within reason.", approved Jaret as he too got up and headed to his office.

Ryan watched Jaret's door closed and sighed, "Why me? Why am I stuck in the same rut again!?" muttered Ryan quietly.

**Epilogue**

It was two days later that the entire crew save the command staff were off the Galaxy. They hit a few snags but it was corrected in the process of it. John and Jaret was really busy with Mr. Cryer about building the school and they knew it will be the fast rebuilding in history for the school board wants the school operational within a month. Tammy, John, Tressa, David, Ryan, and Jaret were the last people on board the Galaxy. They were all smiling.

"Okay, last thing to do, computer transfer helm control to autopilot and remain in standard orbit around Earth. Keep a lock on all senior staff at all times.", instructed Jaret.

"Helm controls transfer to auto pilot completed. Maintaining standard orbit. Any last instruction?" informed the computer.

Ryan looked at them all, and Jaret nodded, "I know Ryan, it won't be long now."

"All the supplies are on Earth Ryan, and you said that you would help my staff rebuild the school with the construction people. Trust me; this will be over and done with in 2 weeks." John smiled.

"Oh god, what have I done?" Ryan groaned at the saddened realization that he still had to work.

"Computer, six to beam down to the surface on the saved coordinates." Jaret instructed as the other friends erupted into a fit of laughter. As the transporter started its cycle, the laughter dimmed and soon the bridge was silent save for a couple of beeps and blinking lights on the console. The lights automatically dimmed in response to the pre programmed instructions. How long will it be before the crew returns and resume another adventure that is lying in wait for them?


End file.
